To improve the frontal crash safety of occupants with different seat orientations in autonomous vehicles, an occupant protection strategy is proposed. Occupants with non-standard seat orientations are actively rotated to the standard seat orientation (0° direction) before a frontal collision occurs. By changing the force direction on the occupant, the protection strategy converts the frontal collision form into the standard frontal collision form, thereby reducing injuries by using airbags. Then, a simplified sled model with seat orientations of ±45° and ±90° was established based on a Honda Accord vehicle model. By comparing the kinematic responses and injury risks of occupants with and without the protection strategy, it can be concluded: 1) The traditional three-point seatbelt restraint system cannot effectively limit the occupant’s diagonal and lateral displacement, leading to a higher risk of “secondary collision” injuries. 2) Under the combined restraint of the leg baffle and seatbelt, the seat completes a rotational angle of ±45° within 200 ms and ±90° within 300 ms. In the simulation test, the occupants with protection strategy can be effectively restrained on the seat without any loss of control in their posture. The risk of “secondary collision” injury is minimal, and there is also a low risk of additional damage to the head, neck, and chest of occupants. Therefore, the effectiveness of the protection strategy of actively rotating seat orientation to face the airbag directly is verified.