Toyota probes self-driving safety issues

But engineers are only beginning to understand how bodies might be flung around inside autonomous vehicles when the "driver" is checking email, watching TV or even sleeping.

The question matters because occupants of self-driving cars might need a host of new safety technologies to protect them.

Drivers and riders might not brace for impact or even be facing forward at all, if futuristic visions for self-driving lounge spaces come to fruition.

Toyota Motor Corp. just completed its biggest in-depth study of the matter, chronicling the body movements of people in simulated near crashes of autonomous vehicles.

Its conclusion: A lot more research is needed.

"We want to be able to offer improved technologies, based on what new postures might be present in a vehicle equipped with automated crash avoidance technologies," said Jason Hallman, the principal safety and crashworthiness engineer who led the one-year study.