NEW VEHICLE CRASHWORTHINESS EVALUATIONS BY THE INSURANCE INSTITUTE FOR HIGHWAY SAFETY

The Institute has conducted crashworthiness evaluations of 22 vehicles in two market classes: four-door midsize cars (16 vehicles) and four-door midsize utility vehicles (6 vehicles). The results reveal a wide range of performance in all three aspects of offset crash protection: structural integrity, dummy injury measures, and restraints and dummy kinematics. Within both vehicle classes, ratings ranged from good to poor in each of these areas. This range of performance is noteworthy because it further confirms that the test speed chosen for the crashworthiness evaluations is reasonable. The separate results indicating that many serious injuries and fatalities are occurring in real-world crashes of greater or equivalent severity to the 40 mi/h offset deformable barrier test means that improved protection up to and including this severity is desirable. These crash test results show that several cars and utility vehicles are already capable of providing good protection in such crashes, while a number provide relatively poor protection and need improvement. [A] For the covering abstract, see IRRD 896528.