front and side airbags in a low speed collision to avoid passenger injury.Even though airbags can save lives, they have been know to tragically take a lives, especially those of children. Safety is the top concern for baby boomers with children due to seatbelt and anti-drunken driving campaigns since grade school (ElBoghdady). These tragic events have the consumers asking about extra safety features such as devices that deactivate the passenger side airbags for infants and children. Mercedes is now equipping some vehicles with a "baby smart system" to deactivate passenger-seat airbag if there is a special child carrier buckled up front (Consumer Reports). Consumers may purchase a special car seat from a Mercedes dealer, which is equipped with a sensor that triggers the "baby smart system" once installed in the front passenger seat.The future of American safety technology may lie in the hands of General Motors. GM is expecting to match the European competition of Mercedes' Tele Aid system by installing its own on-board global satellite positioning and hands-free cell phone service into their 24-hour OnStar system. When an airbag is deployed, a sensor uses the global satellite positioning to send a signal to the OnStar center to dispatch emergency personal immediately to the site of the vehicle. Ford is expected to start installing a similar system in the year 2001. The future looks bright when Terry Connolly, director of GM's North American Safety Center says; "There are opportunities in crash avoidance that are at some point going to become fairly dramatic. At some point in the future a crash will be a rare event (ElBoghdady)."Conclusion/SummaryMerging is a highly effective means of automobile manufactures to become cost efficient. Savings may come from sharing engines, platforms, and production facilities. However, cost efficiency may not be the main goal for merging. Many times companies wish to enter another market segment...
