Typically, an air bag is a safety device used in a car. The air bag fills with nitrogen gas obtained from burning innoxious solid chemicals following the operation of an impact sensor. The gas makes the air bag swell in a range of 0.02 to 0.05 seconds. The inflated air bag then prevents a secondary impact between the body of a passenger and the car structure. Air bags have increased the safety for passengers during automobile accidents.
During a side impact, the death rate of passengers is high. U.S. car accident statistics show that the number of deaths per year for side impacts amounts to roughly 30% of the total deaths from automobile accident. Recently, there has been a trend toward positioning a curtain air bag on a side roof line of automobiles. However, the typical curtain air bag has a structural drawback in that the pillar trim prevents the curtain air bag from completely covering the windows of the driver and passenger seats, thereby failing to protect the passengers of the car. Furthermore, the front pillar trim generally becomes detached from the front pillar causing injury to the occupants of the vehicle.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,402,188 B1, European Patent Publication No. EP 0 873 916 A1, and German Patent Publication No. DE 198 38 069 A1 have addressed some of the above drawbacks. As disclosed therein, the front pillar trim is configured with a notch to ensure a space through which the curtain air bag may deploy. Additional, a hook is inserted and supported to a front pillar panel for the purpose of preventing the front pillar trim from deviating from the front pillar panel. However, when the notch is formed on the front pillar trim, an additional skin material is required because the notch portion is substantially thinner, which renders the production cost undesirably raised. Further, the addition of the hook needs a strap or a specific clip for securing the front pillar trim, which renders the configuration rather complicated and also reduces assembly efficiency.