Toyota develops world's first rear-window airbag

Antuan Goodwin | Oct 02, 2008

The rear-window airbag will work with the headrests to protect passengers' heads.
(Credit: Toyota)

Toyota Motor announced Tuesday that it has developed the world's first rear-window curtain shield airbag to protect rear passengers' heads in the event of a rear-end collision. The new airbag was designed for and will be implemented in its upcoming Japanese market iQ microcar. Merely looking at the photo, we weren't really sure what this new airbag does that the headrests don't already do. Digging a bit deeper we learned that the airbags work with the headrests to minimize impact to the head from a colliding vehicle or parts of the hit vehicle, helping to reduce the severity of injuries.

We're all for safer vehicles here at Car Tech, but we can't help but wonder if this new airbag system will actually work to reduce injuries, or is it just another bullet point safety feature for Toyota's spec sheet.

Via CNET Crave

Filed under: Gadgets
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