Accident responsive safety release for a motor vehicle's rear door child-lock device

DETAILED DESCRIPTION What I claim for my invention is: 1.
A method for releasing a motor vehicle's rear door latch mechanism's anti-egress child-lock device in response to a collision between the motor vehicle and another object and including steps of: presetting state of the anti-egress child-lock device on at least one said rear door to thereby inhibit manual operability of the rear door latch mechanism's interior latch release device; operating the motor vehicle with the preset said anti-egress child-lock device in the preset state; accidentally colliding the motor vehicle usually with another object; sensing the accidental collision to produce a crash signal in response to an impact level in excess of a predetermined threshold; unsetting the preset state of the anti-egress child-lock device in automatic response to the crash signal; and, enabling manual operability of the interior latch release device by an occupant subsequent to the collision.
2.
The method of claim 1 further comprising: said sensing the collision produces the crash signal as an electrical crash signal; and, electrically unsetting the preset state of the anti-egress child-lock device in response to the electrical crash signal.
3.
The method of claim 1 further comprising: locking operation of the motor vehicle through an ignition switch having at least an OFF state and an ON state; said sensing the collision and producing the crash signal as substantial electrical conductance between at least two crash sensor terminals; circuitously coupling the crash sensor terminals with the ignition switch, an electric releaser and a source of electric power; interrupting the circuitous coupling and inhibiting coupling of the crash signal with the electric releaser when the ignition switch is in the OFF state; enabling the circuitous coupling when the ignition switch is in at least the ON state; and, engaging the electric releaser to unset the anti-egress child-lock device in response to an occurrence of the crash signal, thereby enabling manual operability of the rear door latch mechanism's said interior release device