Smallest cars sold in the US did really, really badly in safety tests
It is really just simple physics. From CNN Money:
Of 11 subcompact and minicars subjected to the Institute's small overlap crash test only one, General Motors' (GM, Fortune 500) Chevrolet Spark, did reasonably well.
Six of the cars earned the Institute's lowest rating of "Poor." Those were the Nissan (NSANF) Versa, Toyota (TM) Prius c, Hyundai Accent, the Mitsubishi Mirage, Chrysler Group's Fiat 500 and the Honda (HMC) Fit. The Mazda2, Kia Rio, Toyota Yaris and Ford (F, Fortune 500) Fiesta were deemed Marginal, the second-worst of four possible ratings. Most of these cars have done well in the Institute's other crash tests and in government tests. The Insurance Institute is a private organization financed by auto insurers.
The Spark earned a rating of Acceptable. None of the cars earned the top rating of Good. . . .
Labels: safety
posted by John Lott at 7:07 AM
2 Comments:
Small cars are likely to protect their occupants less...but we should also consider that they are likely to cause less damage, especially in multi-vehicle accidents. It also seems that under certain circumstances what would be an accident in an SUV would be a near miss in a subcompact. It would be interesting to me to figure out what would happen to the overall injury rate at different mixes of small and large vehicles.
(I'm biased towards cars with just enough space for me to fit comfortably without my hair sticking to the headliner)
Note that larger cars did not do much better....http://blog.caranddriver.com/iihs-adds-new-frontal-crash-test-most-cars-expected-to-perform-poorly/
Or...http://blog.caranddriver.com/unsafe-at-any-size-iihs-small-overlap-crash-test-results-for-subcompact-cars-released-world-flips-a-st/?src=spr_FBPAGE&spr_id=1458_41635987
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