GM Adding Rollover Airbags by 2012

2012 might seem a long way off — think two Summer Olympics — but in that amount of time GM says it will outfit every vehicle it makes with standard rollover-enabled airbags. The company has already put the airbags – which deploy when a sensor detects a rollover — in 43% of its light trucks and SUVs. A majority of SUV fatalities occur due to rollovers, and 25% of all traffic fatalities are due to rollovers. Along with the increasing availability of electronic stability systems in SUVs and cars, this added safety measure should dramatically reduce rollover deaths.

[GM to Put Rollover Airbags in All Models, The Detroit News] 

Comments

2012 *is* a long time. Reading between the lines, since "rollover" airbags are just side airbags with additional sensors and/or programming designed to cause them to deploy in a rollover, does this mean that GM's rollout schedule for side curtain airbags is scheduled to drag on until 2012? This is painfully slow.

its an airbag...just wait a few years and then you can drive wreckless and flip the tahoe

I thought these were just smart 'side-curtain airbags'?

"43% of its light trucks and SUVs."

They will reach 100% by 2012? What an achievement. When will ESP be standard on all GM cars and especially trucks? 2020?

Is there really any point in annoucing this at all GM?

basically you have to wait for the next generation, which is the new model in 5 years, big deal its an airbag, its not going to change the fact that im going to buy one. Just learn to drive! People trust their electronics in their own cars WAY too much.

Thanks to Ralph Nader and the like, Darwin can no longer do his work

Yeah, there's some applicability in saying: "Now I have to pay more for a car because you can't drive."

But there's a plus to this. While I don't see how rollover protection in a Cobalt will help (if you somehow manage to roll a Cobolt, I'd bet you're pretty much dead meat no matter what airbags are there), but it does protect people whose cars got rolled over by a side-impact. For example, this might save someone who was making a legal left-turn and got T-boned by someone running a red light. This type of airbag could be a big helper.

Well, i just got in a car accident in my 2007 cobalt. The woman hit me on the front drivers side by the tire, and rolled my car twice. I walked away, meaning got out of the car myself while the car was on its roof, with only a contusion to my head and face, and scratches and bruises... If the car had rollover airbags, it would be a whole lot better...

Amanda: That's absoultely amazing. I'm glad you didn't get hurt any worse than that. I never would have thought you could walk away from a rollover like that - but I guess I was mistaken.