Side-crash tests will soon get much tougher to pass

— -- The government Wednesday ordered automakers to beef up side-crash protection by late 2012, something car companies say they're already doing faster than the new regulation requires.

The rule announced by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration does not dictate how automakers must improve head and torso protection for occupants of vehicles that are hit from the side. But it adopts a tough test procedure that both NHTSA and automakers say will result in all vehicles having side-impact torso and head-curtain air bags.

Every major automaker agreed in December 2003 on a voluntary industry test that is all but impossible to pass without head-protecting inflatable curtains. The car companies agreed to make their vehicles pass that industry test by September 2009, three years earlier than the new NHTSA rule requires. But the new NHTSA rule appears to be harder to pass.

"It's a very stringent set of test requirements," says Chris Tinto, Toyota's safety vice president. "It will require changes to vehicles' structure and additional sensors."

"We're all in favor of voluntary agreements because the auto industry can move more quickly, but this was significant enough we thought we needed to regulate," NHTSA chief Nicole Nason said. Congress also required NHTSA to issue the rule.

Automakers try to pass crash tests by a wider margin if they are part of federal rules than if they are voluntary standards. That's because they have to recall vehicles that fail federal tests but not those that fail industry standards.

Cars will continue to be tested on how well they protect the people inside when hit from the side by another vehicle. But the new rule also establishes a test that will simulate crashing sideways into a tree or a telephone pole. Trees and poles are involved in 9% of all side crashes and 21% of fatal side crashes.

Side crashes are among the deadliest collisions. They were responsible for about 9,200 fatalities, or about 29% of people killed in vehicles in 2005, the latest data available.