Autonomous vehicles enable new interior designs along with a higher variability in occupant sitting positions. This increase in comfort and flexibility renders conventional restraint systems less effective. Particularly in reclined sitting and at higher collision‐related velocity changes (greater than approximately 50 km/h), restraint principles that act only on the pelvis and thorax do not provide the same protection standard examined by consumer organisations at conventional sitting postures. This study describes the effect of new generic occupant restraint principles in future interiors (called ‘safety vest’ and ‘head containment system’) by using a crash dummy and a human body model. The generic safety vest and the head containment system show improvements for all loading directions. However, the head and neck body regions remain challenging in terms of injury reduction.