Passive safety includes all those car features that help to reduce the consequences of an accident for everyone involved.
Passive safety features are divided into two areas.
Exterior safety: this includes all car-related measures that are appropriate to limit as much as possible injuries to road users involved in the accident outside the car. In model development, the objective is to design bodies with a correspondingly suitable deformation and high energy dissipation.
Interior safety: this includes all car measures whose aim is to keep the effects of forces acting on the occupants in an accident as low as possible. In addition to securing devices such as belts, belt tensioners, airbags and headrests, a sufficiently large "residual space" contributes substantially to the interior safety of a car.
There are also all the constructive measures that reduce the risk of injury, such as avoiding sharp edges or using soft, yielding materials for linings or the dashboard area.