In a letter to the Office of Management and Budget, April 5, 2000, the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers (Alliance) committed to contribute to “a major real-world data gathering program to provide a greater factual basis for future air bag rulemakings.” In that letter, the Alliance also committed to establishing a blue ribbon panel to provide oversight of the goals, methods, and findings of the data-collection effort to ensure these investigations follow accepted scientific procedures and result in the additional data needed to address important questions regarding frontal airbag performance.

The panel, which met for the first time in February 2001, consists of representatives from the auto safety research community, the National Transportation Safety Board, academia, medical institutions, and the insurance industry. It also includes representatives from government and the auto industry in observer status.

The panel has agreed that the Alliance-funded study should gather a probability-based sample of frontal crashes of all severity levels using the National Automotive Sampling System (NASS) framework. Of interest are passenger vehicles from the current model year and the four prior model years as well as all front-seat occupants. Higher severity crashes will be oversampled using a stratified sampling plan that will preserve the ability to make national projections. The crash data collected will be fully compatible with the current NASS/Crashworthiness Data System (CDS) cases, thus enhancing the ability to use the total NASS/CDS file for statistical analysis. The ultimate goal of the data-collection effort is to determinewhether depowered and advanced airbags are providing adequate protection to all occupants across the range of crash severities while not increasing the risk to any occupant. The additional frontal crash investigations afforded by the Alliance-funded study should hasten the accumulation of evidence needed to assess the overall real-world performance of depowered and advanced airbags. Furthermore, individual crash investigations will provide timely additional anecdotal evidence of how new technologies are performing in frontal crashes.

Once data are available, the panel will begin hosting annual public meetings, to be announced by public notice.

Available on the website are the original letters of intent from the Alliance, the panel membership, meeting minutes and presentations, as well as other materials generated by the panel.