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- From: lmcstst@noah.ericsson.se (Stamos Stamos)
- Newsgroups: rec.autos
- Subject: Air bag tests
- Message-ID: <1992Nov6.224933.7157@exu.ericsson.se>
- Date: 6 Nov 92 22:49:33 GMT
- Sender: news@exu.ericsson.se
- Organization: Ericsson Communications Inc. Montreal, Canada
- Lines: 49
- Nntp-Posting-Host: 142.133.2.18
- X-Disclaimer: This article was posted by a user at Ericsson.
- Any opinions expressed are strictly those of the
- user and not necessarily those of Ericsson.
-
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-
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- From a local paper: Air Bags offer best protection, test show
-
- Automobiles equipped with air bags generally afforded drivers much better
- protection from head injuries than those with only seatbelts, according
- to the latest US gov. crash test results
-
- Seventy-one vehicles, all 1993s were crashed into a cement barrier at
- 56kph to simulate head-on collision of two cars [each car traveling at
- 28 kph, pretty slow isn't it?]
-
- Thirty-four of the cars had air bags and in each test, seatbelts were
- in place to protect test dummies.
-
- Of teh 15 cars in which the dummy drivers sustained the least severe
- injures, 13 were equipped with air bags. No air bags were in any of
- the 11 cars in which drivers had the most severe and probably life-
- threatening head injuries.
-
- The test were conducted by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
-
- The car with the worst crash-test results was the two-door Oldsmobile
- Achieva, in which the dummy driver sustained a head impact twice as hard
- as is needed to cause serious brain damage or death [at 56kph? what a crap
- car]. A similar result was recorded in the Chevrolet Astro Van.
-
- A level of 1,000 head-injury criteria(HIC) is considered severe enough
- to cause serious and perhaps fatal brain damage, while one of less than
- 500 is not expected to inflict serious injuries.
-
- The car with the best test result was the four-door Volvo 240 sedan.
-
- Over-all, the 37 cars that had only seatbelts had an average HIC of 931
- while the 34 cars with driver side air bags had an average of 592.
-
- [Achieva HIC=~>2000, Volvo HIC=~<592, what a difference!]
-
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- --
- Stamos <lmcstst@noah.ericsson.se> ZZR11 Ellas
- Ericsson, Cellular Design
- Montreal, Canada.
-