Toyota develops world's first center rear seat airbag

Over the last several decades, automakers have made great strides in addressing safety issues, first for front seat occupants and more recently for those in the back. Three point seat-belts are now pretty much universal in the rear compartment, as are head restraints. Curtain airbags are also becoming standard issue in most cars to provide extra protection when the car is impacted from the side. But how do you protect the rear seat occupants from each other?

Toyota has devised a new center position rear air bag that deploys from a roof mounted console. The new bag deploys from the ceiling during a side impact to minimize injuries that can occur when occupants collide with each other. Presumably (hopefully!) this bag does not deploy if someone is actually occupying the center position in the rear. Toyota reports that this new bag will debut this year on a domestic market Toyota vehicle.

[Source: Toyota]