safety pad

I think that it refers to the soft, plastic covered, foam material that is normally used on the fascia panel, which surrounds the instrument cluster.

In the old days, before air-bags, this used to be a solid surface and was considered to be very dangerous in the event of a crash.

Thanks for your answer. A.

Up till the late 1950's the entire dashboard area of an automobile was painted stamped steel, like a fender. With cut-outs for the instrument cluster, glovebox, and the radio.

The padded dashboard was a great improvement - at first, they just put an inch of stiff foam and a molded vinyl cover. That alone cut down on minor facial injuries tremendously. Now they're using engineered plastics designed to absorb quite a bit of energy without damage or hurting the person impacting it too badly.

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