The federal highway safety agency has issued a new rule requiring side-impact air bags. Safety advocates argue that, while a significant step forward, the rule is neither innovative nor sufficient to address side-impact collisions. The new rule governs the amount of impact a test dummy registers during crash testing. The consequences of the new performance standard will most likely be that automakers will make air bags that protect the head during side-impact collisions a standard feature of new vehicles. For vehicles with sensors that detect a rollover, these side-impact bags will provide additional protection for the head during rollover crashes. Safety advocates, however, argue that the new rule is not so new: it embodies a safety standard that auto makers had already voluntarily set in an agreement with Canada. Further, NHTSA called for industry to install side- impact air bags back in 1999, but the public was excluded from a negotiation that resulted only in side-impact air bags being offered at a high mark-up as a luxury option rather than a standard safety feature. Moreover, the side-impact standard does not completely address the issue of vehicle incompatibility. In a side- impact crash, a striking vehicle collides with a struck vehicle. If the striking vehicle is a pick-up truck or SUV and the struck car a sedan, the damage can be significant. As Public Citizen points out, the new side-impact standard only addresses the smaller struck vehicle and ignores the larger vehicle's aggressive design features that contribute to the incompatibility problem. For more comprehensive safety measures, Public Citizen urges the passage of the Safe, Accountable, Flexible, and Efficient Transportation Equity Act, or SAFETEA. The SAFETEA bill, currently pending in Congress, would extend beyond the side-impact standard by minimizing incompatibility, reducing rollover crashes and injuries, and implementing new public disclosures of vehicle safety information.