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Lateral (or side impact) air bags have been in the field since model year 1995. However, relatively low installation rates have limited wide-ranging analyses of the effectiveness of these air bag systems to date. The CIREN database was surveyed to examine the real-world performance of lateral air bag systems and address the following three basic questions: 1) Are lateral air bags providing benefit? 2) Are lateral air bags being overwhelmed by some crash characteristics? 3) Are lateral air bag inflation forces potentially inducing some injury? In the detailed survey afforded by the CIREN database, all three of these conditions were found.