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Archive for August 13th, 2009

There are three primary types of side air bags. The first is known as a “torso” air bag since it protects only the torso or upper body. Rectangular and fairly small in size, it’s often less than 18 inches tall when fully inflated.

This type was used in many of the first vehicles equipped with side air bags. Unfortunately, these air bags usually provide very little protection to your head and neck.

The second type of side air bag is known as a “head and torso” bag. Taller than a regular torso bag, it extends upward to protect the head and neck, as well as the chest and upper torso during side impact accidents.

Generally, this type of air bag protects you much better in an accident by protecting your head, neck and chest from the side of your car and the vehicle that hit you. This is particularly true when you are hit in the side of your vehicle by a taller vehicle, such as a pickup truck, van or SUV.
A more recent type of side air bag is the “curtain” air bag. A curtain air bag deploys downward from the edge of the roof and is intended to cover most of the window. That way it can protect your head and neck, even when they would otherwise move outside the window during the accident.

For maximum protection, curtain air bags are sometimes combined with torso air bags that deploy from the seat or door trim to protect your chest. In many cases, such curtain air bags extend from the front seat toward the back, and can thus also protect back seat passengers.

In prior years, other types of side air bags were sometimes used, but on a much smaller scale. For example, a few cars used a tubular protection system consisting of an air bag shaped like a tube that ran from the front to the back of the door, extending across the window. These systems need a separate torso air bag to adequately protect your chest. Often, there were significant disadvantages associated with such side air bags that resulted in limited use.

Many people do not realize there are a lot of side air bags that do not deploy during a rollover accident, even when the vehicle rolls onto its side. That is because those side air bags do not include an appropriate crash sensor that can detect rollover crashes.

We have received reports of salespeople at car dealerships telling consumers that their side impact air bags will deploy in rollover accidents, even when that is not true. Such statements can cause the salespeople and the dealer to be held responsible for misrepresentation or fraud when the air bags fail to deploy in a rollover.