Complain about a product or service

Insurance Institute Modifies Frontal Crash Tests

Manufacturers' Data To Be Used for Most Test Results

March 30, 2006

IIHS-Auto Safety • Acura TSX Luxury Sedan Top Safety Pick • Nissan Murano Leads SUV Safety Test • Lexus EX35, Cadillac CTS Named Top Safety Picks • Nissan Quest Worst Performer in Minivan Bumper Test • Study: Crash Tests Predict Fatalities In Cars, Not Trucks • Top Safety Awards Go to 34 Cars, SUVs and a Pickup • Midsize SUVs Perform Poorly in Side Impacts • BMW 5 Series Performs Poorly in New Impact Test • Luxury Cars a "Mediocre Lot" in Low-Speed Collisions • Light Trucks Vulnerable to Whiplash --- • More IIHS Tests

The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety is modifying its frontal offset crash tests for cars and light trucks. It will rely more on data from manufacturers' tests, saying its own tests are no longer needed to provide consumers with useful safety information.

The Institute will now use data from manufacturers, including video, to assign ratings in many cases. It will conduct audits as needed to verify manufacturers' results. Institute president Adrian Lund denied the change was a step backward.

"This program has been a huge success," Lund said. "And because of this success frontal offset tests no longer are providing consumers with much useful information to differentiate among vehicles' frontal crashworthiness. We've reached the point where we can declare victory and move on."

Lund said that when the Institute began evaluating frontal crashworthiness, about half of the 80 vehicles that were tested earned marginal or poor ratings. More were rated poor than good.

As manufacturers changed the design of their vehicles to improve crashworthiness, test results improved, so that today, 88 of the 106 current passenger vehicle designs have earned good ratings. None is poor, and only 2 are rated marginal.

Lund said the change will enable the Institute to put more emphasis on improving safety in other areas and will provide test results earlier in the model year.

"We'll keep the pressure on the manufacturers to improve crashworthiness in side impacts and to design seat/head restraints to reduce the risk of whiplash in rear crashes. We'll also look at other areas where crashworthiness improvements still can be made," he said.

Lund said that only redesigned vehicles with immediate predecessors that earned the top rating of good in previous Institute tests will be eligible for the verification process. Substantially redesigned vehicles with significant changes in size, weight, or body style will not be eligible and the Institute will continue testing such vehicles.

"The verification approach assures that automakers still pay attention to offset crash protection as they redesign their older models and introduce new ones. This approach is possible because of the manufacturers' actions during the past decade. They have incorporated offset crash test performance plus government-required and other consumer information crash testing into their guidelines. They routinely conduct their own offset tests during the design process," Lund said.

"The manufacturers will assume a bigger role now that our frontal test is a de facto industry standard. This is how it should work. When most every vehicle passes the test, it's time to simply keep an eye out to make sure manufacturers continue the good work," Lund said.

First Round

The vehicles selected for the first round of test verification are all new or redesigned models for the 2006 or 2007 model year. These include a midsize moderately priced car (Toyota Camry), three large family cars (Buick Lucerne, Hyundai Azera, and Chevrolet Impala), one small SUV (Toyota RAV4), three midsize SUVs (Honda Pilot, Ford Explorer, and Mercedes M class), and a large pickup truck (Dodge Ram 1500).

The manufacturers supplied information on basic vehicle and test parameters, measurements of intrusion into the occupant compartment, injury data recorded on a dummy representing an average-size man in the driver seat, and video of the tests. Institute engineers reviewed this information and rated the vehicles based on the same evaluation parameters that always have been used.

Eight of the nine vehicles earn good frontal crashworthiness ratings. The Impala is acceptable.

To ensure manufacturers' good faith participation in the new evaluation procedures, the Institute is conducting audit tests. Institute engineers selected the Buick Lucerne for the first audit, and the results of this test confirm the data supplied by the manufacturer from its own test.

The Lucerne's structure held up with little safety cage deformation in the test. Most injury measures recorded on the driver dummy were low. The car is rated good. "This level of performance is the norm now," Lund notes.

The Institute's test primarily assesses how well a vehicle's front-end crush zone absorbs energy during a crash and, in turn, how well the occupant compartment, or safety cage, holds together. If the compartment remains largely intact, then the restraint systems can control the motion of the crash test dummy and help keep injury measures low.

Newer vehicles have much stronger occupant compartments, in large part because of the steps automakers have taken in the past decade to earn good ratings in the Institute's frontal tests.

An example of this improvement is the Mitsubishi Galant. When the Institute tested a 1995 model, the occupant compartment virtually collapsed. The dummy's movement wasn't well controlled, in part because the safety cage crumpled. The dummy moved around the left side of the inflating airbag, and its left shoulder hit the sharp edge of the buckling window frame. Its left knee pushed through the instrument panel and hit the steering column's attachment hardware, gashing the dummy's vinyl "skin" at the knee.

"The new model shows what Mitsubishi and other manufacturers have done to improve frontal crashworthiness," Lund says. "From the leading edge of the 2004's front door backward, virtually no deformation occurred in the test. The driver's survival space held up very well, leaving room for the airbags and belts to do their jobs."

Some cars have been good performers from the beginning of the Institute's program. Three successive designs of the Ford Taurus earned the highest rating in the frontal test. But the rating for the recently tested Ford Fusion isn't good. The structure of this car, a brand new design, held up well, but the frontal evaluation is unacceptable because of high forces on the dummy's right leg.

Research shows that drivers of vehicles that earn good ratings in frontal offset crash tests have significantly lower risk of fatal injuries in real-world frontal crashes, compared with drivers of vehicles with poor ratings.

Report Your Experience
If you've had a bad experience -- or a good one -- with a consumer product or service, we'd like to hear about it. All complaints are reviewed by class action attorneys and are considered for publication on our site. Knowledge is power! Help spread the word. File your consumer report now.

Back to the top |