Thoracic Injury Risk as a Function of Crash Severity - Car-to-car Side Impact Tests with WorldSID Compared to Real-life Crashes.

Side airbags reduce the risk of fatal injury by approximately 30%. Due to limited real-life data the risk reducing effect for serious injury has not yet been established. Since side airbags are mainly designed and validated for crash severities used in available test procedures little is known regarding the protective effect when severity increases.