An apparatus or front row vehicle seat having portions A, B, C and D. The apparatus is adjustable by an occupant in its normal motionless position. When a vehicle electronic control unit senses a hazardous traffic situation, it causes activation of a seat actuator. In response, each of seat portions A, B, C, and D is simultaneously altered, without an occupants' action, to a new deployed position. The new deployed positions of the seat portions A, B, C, and D inhibit occupant ejection from a vehicle. The portions A, B and D of the apparatus are supported by front and rear stationary pillars and a middle movable pillar. The pillars project from a related unit seat height adjuster. The interaction of the rear stationary pillars with the portion D helps keep various seat components in the same orientation and position with respect to each other before and after deployment.

The occupant restraining device for a vehicle has a seatbelt, a collision predicting sensor, a braking device that enlarges a gap between a vehicle occupant and a seatback of a vehicle seat, an explosive-type pretensioner and electric motor that retract the seatbelt, and a control section that, in a case in which a front collision of the vehicle is sensed in advance by the collision predicting sensor, enlarges the gap between the vehicle occupant and the seatback by the braking device and starts retracting of the seatbelt by the explosive-type pretensioner and the electric motor, and at least until forward movement of the vehicle occupant starts after occurrence of the front collision, continues to input load to the vehicle occupant from the seatbelt and continues to move the vehicle occupant toward a vehicle rear side.

A method and vehicle control system for controlling stiffness of at least one support structure of a vehicle includes at least one of an acceleration sensor, a braking sensor and a corner sensor for providing a driving condition of the vehicle. A controller obtains information from the sensors to determine the driving condition and control the stiffness of a support structure of the vehicle. A magnetic field generator provides a magnetic field to control the stiffness of the support structure having a magnetorheological fluid or elastomer. An electrical source provides electrical current to a support structure including an electrorheological fluid or a support structure including a meta-material. When a vehicle collision is predicted no energy is provided to the support structure to minimize the stiffness and maximize energy absorbance by the support structure in a collision.

A vehicle control system includes a setting unit to sense a plurality of forward vehicles positioned ahead of a subject vehicle in a driving direction, to classify each of the forward vehicles as a far-away vehicle or a near-by vehicle, and to set each of the far-away vehicles as an interest vehicle, a receiving unit to receive braking information of each of the interest vehicles from the respective interest vehicles, and a control unit to control braking of the subject vehicle based on the braking information of each of the interest vehicles received by the receiving unit.