Side air bags are becoming more of a standard feature in the emerging vehicle fleet. These systems appear to offer superior protection in side crashes. Vehicle manufacturers are increasingly adding larger curtains that cover the entire window and two or three rows of seating. Currently, there are not any Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards (FMVSS) performance requirements related to the side out-of-position (OOP) performance with respect to side air bags. Therefore, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) conducted research tests to monitor this performance in both the front seat and rear seat positions where side air bags deploy.

The NHTSA has been monitoring this performance in recent model years, guided by the Technical Working Group (TWG) Procedures, a document that describes a voluntary set of OOP procedures with the main focus on side air bags, primarily in the front seats. This study uses the Hybrid III 3-year-old, 6-year-old and SID-IIs (5th percentile adult female side impact dummy) dummies in different OOP test modes for all rows in the vehicle. The dummy responses from tests of side air curtains were all below the injury assessment reference values (IARVs). The dummy responses from tests of door and seat-mounted side air bags were also generally below the IARVs, but some OOP orientations in some vehicles did result in responses that were elevated or exceeded the IARVs.

As more vehicles add side air bags as standard features, the NHTSA is monitoring vehicles through Vehicle Safety Research (VSR) and the New Car Assessment Program (NCAP). The agency will continue to monitor how the air bags are affecting the OOP occupants in all near-side seating positions as air bag technology changes resulting from voluntary and federal upgrades. Currently, the NHTSA relies on the manufacturers to provide voluntary feedback on whether they have passed the TWG procedures, in addition to the testing done by VSR and NCAP.