Officials of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration are about to mandate new auto-crash tests in an effort to make air bags in cars safer. But automakers say the expected tests are flawed and could lead to even more deaths of children and small adults.

Since 1990, air bags have killed 111 people in the U.S.

• The NHTSA is currently leaning toward requiring a test vehicle to be slammed into a concrete wall at 30 miles per hour.

• But the auto industry claims this would require them to make bags inflate with such force that motorists -- especially those not wearing a seat belt -- would be at risk of suffering severe injuries.

• Industry experts argue that requirements to pass the same test were what led to the real-world deaths of the 111 in the first place.

• After the NHTSA realized the bags were deploying with dangerous force, they allowed automakers to inflate the bags with 20 percent to 35 percent less force and use a less aggressive sled test -- in which mock-ups of vehicles were accelerated backward very quickly, but did not ram a barrier.

The so-called auto-safety lobby decries the less aggressive test, claiming that the industry wants to "trade off" the lives of larger occupants for the lives of children. But the industry claims the 30 mph test is "flawed."