For rear-seat passengers, even the most secure small automobile isn’t as secure because it might be. In a brand new spherical of security assessments, simply two small sedans obtained a passing grade for shielding individuals within the again from a frontal-impact crash.
One in every of America’s two main automobile security testers made its crash assessments harder this 12 months. The outcomes haven’t been encouraging. However more durable assessments are supposed to push greater requirements, so the end result might drive improved security expertise in the long term.
Associated: IIHS Provides Fewer Security Awards After Toughening Crash Checks
America’s Two Crash Testing Companies
Many international locations crash-test automobiles, however America advantages from the work of two security testing organizations.
One is the federal authorities’s Nationwide Freeway Site visitors Security Administration (NHTSA). It was not concerned on this spherical of assessments.
The opposite just isn’t a authorities effort. A gaggle of automobile insurance coverage firms funds their very own security lab — the Insurance coverage Institute for Freeway Security (IIHS). Insurers make more cash when accidents are rarer and fewer lethal, so the insurance coverage trade makes use of the IIHS to push the auto trade to develop safer automobiles.
The institute’s assessments are typically considered more durable than authorities assessments, partly as a result of it could actually modify its testing packages with no prolonged public remark interval.
That’s what it did this 12 months.
New, More durable Checks
The IIHS has lengthy carried out a frontal-overlap crash take a look at that represents a automobile crashing into one other barely offset, just like the crashes frequent in intersections. The take a look at occurs at about 40 mph and mimics a automobile crashing right into a automobile of comparable dimension and weight.
In 2023, the company added a dummy to the rear seats, representing a 12-year-old little one.
The company charges automobiles as Good, Acceptable, Marginal, or Poor based mostly on the chance of accidents to the driving force and, now, second-row passenger.
The IIHS revealed its first spherical of the brand new assessments in March, utilizing a bunch of midsize SUVs. All of the automobiles protected their driver nicely, however the outcomes for rear-seat passengers had been worse. Simply 4 of the 13 SUVs examined earned a Good rating for shielding rear-seat passengers.
At present, the company launched comparable outcomes for a bunch of compact automobiles. They did worse.
Not one of the 5 automobiles examined earned a Good rating.
“These outcomes spotlight one of many key causes that we up to date our average overlap entrance crash take a look at,” mentioned IIHS President David Harkey. “In all of the small automobiles we examined, the rear dummy ‘submarined’ beneath the seat belt, inflicting the lap belt to journey up onto the stomach and growing the chance of inside accidents.”
Submarining, the institute explains, causes the seatbelt “to slip from the hip bones onto the stomach, the place it could actually trigger inside accidents.
Within the three poor-rated automobiles, measurements taken from the rear dummy additionally confirmed a average or excessive threat of head, neck or chest accidents.”
Dangerous Information Can Set off Adjustments
The institute says it “launched the up to date average overlap entrance take a look at final 12 months after analysis confirmed that in newer automobiles, the chance of a deadly harm is now greater for belted occupants within the rear than for these in entrance.”
That’s not as a result of rear-seat security is getting worse. It’s as a result of front-seat security is getting higher. Entrance-seat passengers have airbags in entrance of them and infrequently have “superior seat belts which can be hardly ever out there in again.”
With its more durable requirements, the institute might disgrace automakers into putting in higher seatbelts within the rear of most automobiles.
The Outcomes
