[en] For the collision-induced dissociation (CID) process H⁺₂ +He→H⁺+H+He, there are two degenerate product electronic states. We discuss the two potential energy surfaces for this system and describe for the first time a way to determine the distribution of products on the two surfaces from product velocity measurements. The procedure is remarkably simple but extremely general. High energy CID experiments are reexamined in light of this result. In addition, the analysis is applied to recent experiments in our laboratory. This shows that at E/sub c.m./ = 3.1 eV, CID of H⁺₂ molecules, initially selected to be in vibrational level 0 or 1, gives products only on the excited electronic surface. This surprising result has important implications for any theory of CID. A simple mechanism is presented which can rationalize the experiments