A Simple Innovation On The 2015 GMC Canyon and Chevy Colorado Could Save A Child's Life

General Motors is making it safer for children to ride in the rear seat of its midsize pickup trucks with a simple but effective feature that debuts on the 2015 GMC Canyon and 2015 Chevrolet Colorado, set to go on sale this fall.

Typically, midsize pickups with an extended cab have a pair of truncated rear seats, because there isn’t enough room to include normal ones in the back. The trouble is, the seat cushions aren’t long enough to fully support the base of most car seats for kids, which makes them unstable and less effective at protecting these passengers in a crash.

To fix that problem, GM engineers created a way to extend the lower cushion of the rear passenger-side jump seat in the Canyon and Colorado simply by removing the head rest and reattaching it to the front of the seat cushion. (See the video below for a demonstration.)

“The additional seat cushion length provides more support to the child restraint, which helps to reduce the rotation and the risk of injury in a crash,” says Eduardo Bugelli, GM safety performance team lead. A patent on the design of the seat extender is pending.

The 2015 GMC Canyon (Credit: General Motors)

GM says the Canyon and Colorado will be the first pickups to offer such a feature. They also will be the first midsize pickups to offer forward collision warning and lane departure warning, two advanced safety features that are part of an optional Driver Alert Package.

Given that pickups are increasingly used as everyday passenger vehicles, rather than just as work trucks, these kinds of safety features are becoming more important to buyers, who are carting kids around in them more so than in the past.

The Canyon and Colorado will come in three body styles. Only the extended cab model with a six-foot cargo bed will get the seat extender, which will come as a standard feature. Two crew cab versions, one with a five-foot and one with a six-foot bed, have full-size back seats that don’t require it.

With the extender in place, a child seat in the rear of the 2015 GMC Canyon is more stable. (Credit: General Motors)

In contrast to the full-size truck market, which domestic automakers dominate, GM is the only American company currently producing a midsize pickup truck. Both Chrysler and Ford have ceded the market to Japanese automakers Nissan and Toyota, whose Frontier and Tacoma are top sellers.

But GM sees an opportunity: Full-size pickup owners who like having a truck and don’t make use of its rugged capabilities might be looking to downsize if it saves them money and fuel. That’s where the all-new GMC Canyon and Chevy Colorado come in.

They’re smaller and lighter than the full-size Chevy Silverado and GMC Sierra pickups, and they offer an efficient four-cylinder engine. A V6 and turbo-diesel also will be available, with the latter coming for the 2016 model year.

Though they are corporate twins, the two new midsize models target different types of buyers. The GMC Canyon, which debuted at the 2014 Detroit auto show, is meant for small-business owners and other professional users, whereas the Chevy Colorado, which debuted at the 2013 Los Angeles auto show, is geared toward outdoorsy types.

The 2015 GMC Canyon and 2015 Chevy Colorado go on sale this fall with pricing to be announced.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/matthewdepaula/2014/04/30/the-2015-gmc-canyons-simple-innovation-that-can-save-a-childs-life/