The NY Times reports that the auto industry is set to announce a new plan to redesign vehicles in a way that mitigates the dangers sport utilities and pickups pose to passenger cars.
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The report says that the plan will essentially require automakers to make side airbags standard equipment on new vehicles by 2009. Those bags protect passengers’ heads in side-impact collisions. It will also require changes in sport utilities and pickup trucks to make them less dangerous to the occupants of passenger cars.
However, the report said that Brian O’Neill, president of the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, sounded a note of caution. He said: “It’s a necessary first step, but it doesn’t solve the problem. There’s more work to be done yet.”
Under pressure from Jeffrey Runge, who runs the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, automakers began working together earlier this year on a plan to address the dangers that SUVs and pickups pose to car occupants.
The NY Times said the industry was “still ironing out the final details” but added that a deal was said to be close.
Under the plan, automakers will agree to performance tests that will essentially be impossible for most vehicles to pass unless they have side impact airbags that offer head protection. Half of new vehicles will undergo the tests by 2007 and all by 2009.
