Patent ID: 8118130

Claim:
An apparatus for controlling a vehicle actuatable occupant restraining system in a vehicle comprising: a central crash accelerometer at a central vehicle location sensing crash acceleration in a direction of a front-to-rear axis of the vehicle and providing a central crash acceleration signal indicative thereof; a crush zone crash accelerometer at a forward location of the vehicle sensing transverse crash acceleration in a direction transverse to the front-to-rear axis of the vehicle and providing a transverse crash acceleration signal indicative thereof; and a controller actuating the actuatable occupant restraining system in response to the central crash acceleration signal and the transverse crash acceleration signal, said controller determining a crash velocity value from said central crash acceleration signal and actuating said actuatable occupant restraining system by comparing said crash velocity value against a first velocity threshold function when said transverse crash acceleration signal from said crush zone crash accelerometer is at a first value and actuating said actuatable occupant restraining system by comparing said crash velocity value against a second velocity threshold function when said transverse crash acceleration signal from said crush zone crash accelerometer is at a second value.