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Increased motor vehicle safety standards for frontal and side impact crashes are requiring quicker sensor response to deploy air bags and safety related components. A reliable method of pre-arming crash safety systems may provide the potential for enhanced occupant protection by decreasing the time required to discriminate between real crash events and non-events. The reduced discrimination times will allow safety engineers more design flexibility in tailoring air bag inflation rates, pressures and belt pre tensioning systems to further improve their effectiveness in severe crash events and to prevent air bag induced injury due to an out of position occupant. The paper investigates the initial system engineering requirements for a pre-arming sensor and establishes a baseline approach for further study.