SAFETY

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Right alongside our work in avoiding accidents, we're continuing our leadership in occupant protection.

Safety belts: As important as we may think air bags are, it's more important to realize that air bags are meant only as a supplement to safety belts. Safety belts are still the most effective method of avoiding injury in a collision. If you wear them every time you drive a vehicle, GM safety belts can reduce the chance of occupant fatality by 42 percent. Used with safety belts, air bags reduce that chance by another 5 percent. Without safety belts, air bags are much less effective than safety belts alone.

We've made a number of improvements to make it easier to use safety belts 100 percent of the time, including:

• Adjustable shoulder straps -- on many GM passenger cars and light-duty trucks you can make a belt more comfortable without affecting its ability to lock up instantly in case of a rapid stop or an accident.

• A rear seat belt attachment that protrudes through the seat cushion eliminates loose or tangled belts and disappearing buckles.

• A rear shoulder belt re-router makes the rear shoulder belt more comfortable for children and smaller adults.

For Safety Belts Facts, Myths and Questions, Click Here

Air bags: We put dual airbags in every GM vehicle, with dual stage
airbags in some. Many GM vehicles feature knee bolsters to help prevent a passenger from "submarining" under the instrument panel in an accident.

Note: You should never put a rear-facing infant seat in the front passenger seat in vehicles equipped with a passenger side air bag. Inflation of the air bag can cause death or serious injuries to infants in rear facing seats. In fact General Motors recommends that all children be placed in the rear seat of the vehicle.

When used with safety belts, air bags reduce the risk of driver fatality in frontal collisions by up to 47% - an additional 5 percentage points over safety belts alone (42%). When used alone, without safety belts, air bags reduce the risk of fatality by 21%.

Questions and Answers on Air Bags? Click Here

Passenger Sensing System Click Here

General Motors' Passenger Sensing System is designed to help reduce the potential for inflation-induced injuries or fatalities to smaller occupants, including children, who may be seated improperly in front of an active air bag

Passenger Compartment Integrity: Side-guard door beams on all GM cars and light trucks, along with GM safety cage construction -- steel-reinforced passenger compartments and front and rear crush zones -- help protect properly belted drivers and passengers.

High Penetration Resistant Windshield: helps prevent occupant injuries and ejection in a crash.

Saab Active Head Restraint (SAHR): Developed by Delphi Interior and Lighting Systems engineers, the SAHR system is entirely mechanical and is based on the lever principle. An upper padded support is connected to a pressure plate in the backrest of the seat. In some rear-end collisions, the occupant’s body will be forced into the backrest by the crash pulse, which moves the pressure plate to the rear. Subsequently, the head restraint is moved up and forward to “catch” the occupant’s head before the dangerous whiplash movement can start.

Child-Resistant Trunk Kit: General Motors has designed and developed a child-resistant trunk kit which can be installed in most of its 1990 and newer passenger cars engineered in North America. The kits, an industry first, are designed to help prevent trunk lids from unintentionally closing on a child, and also to provide a means of escape in the event that a child does become entrapped. Manual trunk release is standard on all vehicles with a trunk.