Abstract: A vehicle airbag restraint system for vehicles has an inflatable airbag which is deployed in its inflated protective position between a seated occupant and a large vehicle component. The front side of the airbag is guided during the inflating process by a supporting mating surface of the vehicle component, which extends in the vertical and horizontal directions of the vehicle. In its collapsed inoperative position the airbag is arranged at a small distance from the mating surface of the vehicle component, to the side of the seating space, at the level of the mating surface, and can be inflated transversely with respect to the direction of travel of the vehicle, along the mating surface into its deployed protective position.

Abstract: The invention relates to a restraint system for vehicle occupants with a gas cushion and a gas generator that fills the gas cushion and equipped with a solid-matter propellent charge as well as an electrically activated ignition device designed as a laser and provided in order to ignite the solid-matter propellent charge. To increase the functional reliability, the laser which is designed as a semiconductor laser is situated in an ignition chamber of the generator whose beam is aimed or guided directly onto the gas-generating solid-matter propellent charge at the time of ignition.