Method and apparatus for controlling an actuatable safety device

An apparatus for determining a crash condition of a vehicle, said apparatus comprising:

• a first accelerometer for sensing crash acceleration in a first direction substantially parallel to a front-to-rear axis of the vehicle at a substantially central vehicle location and providing a first acceleration signal indicative thereof;
• a second accelerometer for sensing crash acceleration in a second direction substantially parallel to a side-to-side axis of the vehicle and providing a second acceleration signal indicative thereof;
• third accelerometers for sensing crash acceleration in the first direction at two locations remote from the substantially central vehicle location and near opposite sides of the vehicle and providing acceleration signals indicative thereof;
• and
• a controller determining a transverse crash evaluation value functionally related to the second acceleration signal and determining remote crash evaluation values functionally related to the acceleration signals at the remote locations, the controller also comparing the determined transverse crash evaluation value as a function of the determined remote evaluation values against associated thresholds, the controller further determining a crash condition of the vehicle in response to (a) the comparison and (b) the first acceleration signal wherein said controller determines the remote crash evaluation values as a sum of moving averages of acceleration in said first direction at the remote locations.