Toyota Rear Seat Center Airbag, the First of a New Breed?

Japanese manufacturer Toyota has developed the world's first (according to Toyota Motor research) rear seat center airbag, meant to add to passenger's safety in case of a side collision. As part of the company's Supplemental Restraint System (SRS), the center airbag features a center console, mounted on the center of the car's roof.

The airbag is housed in a fixed, rear-seat center console and will be available on an unmentioned version of a Toyota model to be launched in Japan in the near future. When the vehicle is hit side-on, the airbag deploys from the top of the console and acts as a barrier meant to reduce the severity of secondary injuries.

This rather vague description is enough to get our curiosity up and that's about it. Toyota's press release doesn't give any other details regarding the SRS and leaves many questions unanswered. The least of which is what car will feature it.

Surely the SRS will be a great addition to the safety features today's vehicles are equipped with. But as most of them are designed to be five seater (in the case of a two seater car there is obviously no need for a rear center airbag), a big question remains unanswered: what happens to the fifth passenger, the one who is seated in the middle?

Of course, he will not get squashed by the deploying airbag. Toyota must have thought to some override system, which by detecting the presence of a fifth passenger might stop the SRS from activating. But wouldn't that, in turn, rend the system useless?

The questions will stand until Toyota will further detail the rear center airbag system. Until then, the company will focus on making available its other SR systems, like the curtain shield and knee airbags.