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Old curmudgeons like me like to talk about how much freedom children had when we were young. We had less supervision, more responsibilities, and the freedom to come and go that our children and grandchildren can scarcely imagine. But there is one area we check ourselves. When someone says, “When I 
was a kid, we didn’t even have seat belts, or laws that said you had to use them, or airbags.” The next line should be “…and we turned out fine,” but we stop because we all know at least one kid who didn’t turn out fine, who isn’t here to relive those memories. Many childhood dangers are overblown, but traffic accidents are still the most common cause of death for youngsters.
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And now Ford has what they believe is a better idea. Inflatable seat belts for back seat passengers have been in testing for eight years, and will be an option on the 2011 Ford Explorer. The device is a combination of seat belts and airbags, like the inflatable seat belts used on some airplanes. The belts do not inflate unless the front or side airbags are deployed. The advantages of such a system are that it eliminates the danger to children that front-seat style airbags pose, because the bags are already fitted around the child’s chest area. They also cover a larger area, whether deployed or not, which will spread the force of an impact and cause less injury from the belt itself than conventional seat belts. And the inflatable belts are more comfortable than conventional belts, which may lead more back seat passengers to buckle up.
Ford says that the system will be available on other models soon after its debut in their new model Explorer. Sure, you can expect the seat belts to add to the vehicle’s price, but safety features are worth it even if they are never used, especially compared to other options on which we spend hundreds of dollars.
Update: Wes Sherwood of Ford Motor Company appeared in the comments to address some concerns.
The rear inflatable belts deploy sideaways and away from the occupant with cold gas technology. Since the belt already is on the occupant, the inflatable belt will deploy slower than traditional air bags that use different gases to deploy the air bags quick enough to make up the distance from the occupant.We recommend customers use the LATCH anchors — standard in all of Ford, Lincoln and Mercury North American vehicles — to restrain child seats as recommended by the U.S. government. We also tested the new rear inflatable seat belts in many ways, including with a variety of front- and rear-facing child seats and booster seats, and did not find any cause for concern. We even tested a crash dummy that simulated a child sleeping with their head on the seat belt as the inflatable belt deploys and found no issues.
The inflatable belts will not deploy if they’re not buckled. However, there is no on/off switch because we have not seen in our testing a situation that would require such a feature.
Ford currently offers seat sensing technology in the front passenger seat, not rear seats.
Thank you again for the opportunity to join the discussion.
Comments (6)
Comment
- Follow mental_floss
That looks interesting for booster seats and kids in the backseat without any sort of additional safety device, but it also appears that it would be deadly if a child in a carseat (an infant “pumpkin seat” or a 5 point toddler seat) were in a car with this installed. Wouldn’t it just launch the safety seat, or break pieces of the seat that hold it into the car off when you need them to hold the most?
Perhaps if the car seat were installed with the LATCH system, and the seat belt weren’t used at all for installation of the car seat, but then, where are you going to put the seat belt to keep it from flopping around onto your kid, or, God forbid, deploying near your infant in a crash?
I’ve been hit with airbags (on my arms) before, and I had chemical burns and major bruises. While I’m aware that this is preferable to the broken faces people suffered in previous eras, before seatbelts and airbags, an airbag of any kind is NOT something I would want going off that close to my kid’s face. I would think it could blow off an ear!
I just read Stiff by Mary Roach, and apparently there are very few child cadavers made available for research into such things (and no wonder!). Front and side airbags designed for adults were developed using human cadavers as test subjects. They simply can’t test and prove this technology the same way, because grieving parents don’t want to give their childrens’ bodies for research (organ donation, sure, sometimes, but not research like this – this falls under “donation to science”).
This is not a technology that I want in my car. I will not be the first person on the block to line up for seatbelt airbags. I feel sorry for the kids whose parents end up getting these and unwittingly making their (living) children into crash test dummies.
posted by Amy on 11-9-2009 at 8:55 am
Amy – this is the exact question that came to my mind. Is there a way to ‘turn off’ the airbag when using it with a child car seat? Anyone know?
posted by JaneM on 11-9-2009 at 9:03 am
According to Ford, using the cold compressed air to inflate the airbag-seatbelts will protect backseat passengers from chemical burns. It also deploys more slowly than front-seat or side airbags, since it doesn’t have so far to go in protecting you. The link in my name goes to their airbag detail page, which states that the “intelligent safety system” will be able to tell whether the backseat is empty, a small child or a small, medium or large adult presence is detected before deploying. I couldn’t find anything on rear-facing infant seats, though, which would have been nice. Most trucks on the market now have a switch to turn off passenger-side airbags when using a rear-facing infant seat; perhaps the same switch will be used for the new inflatable seatbelts. I look forward to more information from Ford on the matter. It would be a great step forward for passenger safety.
posted by Tamsyn on 11-9-2009 at 10:37 am
i work in the aviation industry and read the other day that one of our vendors is going to start producing seatbelts for aircraft with airbags in them. don’t ask me how it works or what good they would really be, just something i read…
posted by tiffany on 11-9-2009 at 6:09 pm
I am the safety PR person at Ford, and appreciate the opportunity to help answer questions.
The rear inflatable belts deploy sideaways and away from the occupant with cold gas technology. Since the belt already is on the occupant, the inflatable belt will deploy slower than traditional air bags that use different gases to deploy the air bags quick enough to make up the distance from the occupant.
We recommend customers use the LATCH anchors — standard in all of Ford, Lincoln and Mercury North American vehicles — to restrain child seats as recommended by the U.S. government. We also tested the new rear inflatable seat belts in many ways, including with a variety of front- and rear-facing child seats and booster seats, and did not find any cause for concern. We even tested a crash dummy that simulated a child sleeping with their head on the seat belt as the inflatable belt deploys and found no issues.
The inflatable belts will not deploy if they’re not buckled. However, there is no on/off switch because we have not seen in our testing a situation that would require such a feature.
Ford currently offers seat sensing technology in the front passenger seat, not rear seats.
Thank you again for the opportunity to join the discussion.
posted by Wes Sherwood on 11-9-2009 at 10:30 pm
Hi my name is Yeon! introduce my idea
airbags jump safetbelt
——————————————-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qm2rkSKhx_A
——————————————–
Watch the youtube
This is my new idea,what do you think?
contact to me!
posted by yeon on 11-22-2009 at 6:22 pm