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Morning News

Survive Your Drive: G.M. Prepares for Front-End Crash Test

Aired August 25, 2000 - 9:32 a.m. ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: Now back to today's in-depth coverage of the dangers you face when you get behind the wheel of your car. Also ways to make driving safer.

Our "Survive Your Drive" coverage continues now with our Ed Garsten. He is at a General Motors testing facility in Milford, Michigan, for a look at crash testing.

Ed, good morning.

ED GARSTEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning to you, Daryn.

If you were here with us about an hour and a half ago, you saw quite a violent simulation of a side-impact accident. Using a Saturn as an example to kind of test the side air bag system that will be coming out in the fall.

We want to show you and let you look and hear what that was like.

All right. Well, there the barrier would come into the Saturn at about 35 miles an hour. And as we look at a slo-mo view of that accident, I am going to bring in Terry Connally, who is the director of the G.M. Safety Center.

Terry, tell us about what was that test designed to show, and what did we learn from it?

TERRY CONNALLY, DIR., G.M. SAFETY CENTER: What you are seeing is a 38 mile an hour, 3000 pound carriage coming in, targeted right on the driver's door. The sensor in the pillar of the car will pick up that crash in five milliseconds, 5/1000th of a second. It deploys this thing we call a roof rail air curtain, it looks like an air mattress, and it is going to catch that driver's head and neck, as they head towards the pillar in the window of the vehicle.

GARSTEN: That is going to really protect some of the rear seat occupants that really haven't -- they don't take advantage of air bag technology. I wonder if you could explain that.

CONNALLY: Well, it really protects in side impact. Obviously, the rear seat occupant doesn't have a frontal bag, but doesn't have a side bag either. So this does help. Side impact harm account for about a third of the harm, the damage, the injuries that we see in the field, a very important collision. GARSTEN: When will this be out?

CONNALLY: This is arriving at the dealerships right now in Saturns.

GARSTEN: All right. Now, coming up in our next hour. We have got a Malibu right there up against the barrier, but it is not going to be alive and kicking for much longer. What is going to happen with that test, Terry?

CONNALLY: Momentarily, we will drag the Malibu back, and them it will come into this barrier in a 30 mile an hour frontal test, and you will see a considerable crush in the front-end of the vehicle. A 30 mile-an-hour test is a very severe test into a hard wall barrier.

GARSTEN: What will we learn from that?

CONNALLY: This is an experimental test to look at advanced air bag systems. We have been working for a couple of years on better and better air bag systems, and this one is going to protect small occupants very, very well.

GARSTEN: All right, we will be looking forward to that in the next hour on CNN. Ed Garsten, CNN, reporting live from Milford, Michigan.

KAGAN: Good stuff, Ed. Look forward to that.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com

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