A Word Of Warning If You’re Downsizing

American safety institute highlight the serious consequences of driving small cars when involved in a collision.

All over the world people are downsizing, trading in their bigger more inefficient model for something small, light and economical but people are forgetting some of the downsides.

The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS), an American EuroNCAP, conducted a series of tests which have shown drivers in small cars to be vulnerable.

The IIHS crashed two cars into one another simulating an incident when one crosses the centre line and the two cars hit, not quite head on. This is called an offset crash and puts the driver at considerable risk as the impact is concentrated onto their areas of the car.

The IIHS used one large car against one smaller car crashing; a Honda Fit crashing into a Honda Accord, the Smart ForTwo into a Mercedes C-Class and a Toyota Yaris into a Toyota Camry. Each of these cars were travelling at 40 mph and the results are less than promising.

Each of the small cars sustained damage the institute believes would lead to injuries for their occupants. In a statement, Adrian Lund, president of the Arlington, Va.-based institute, said,

"Though much safer than they were a few years ago, minicars as a group do a comparatively poor job of protecting people in crashes, simply because they're smaller and lighter. In collisions with bigger vehicles, the forces acting on the smaller ones are higher, and there's less distance from the front of a small car to the occupant compartment to 'ride down' the impact. These and other factors increase injury likelihood."

All three types of small car suffered damage to the driver with head and legs being most common. Because of its small stature the Smart ForTwo had extensive damage in particular where the driver sits.

The manufacturers disagree and highlight that the test is an example of a rare and extreme situation and state that their cars are built to meet all required safety standards. The force impacted on these vehicles is the equivalent to an 80 mph collision which is well above what you could expect to endure in a Smart for example. Dave Schembri, president of Smart's U.S comments,

“The Smart ForTwo meets or exceeds all U.S. government crash-test standards.” Toyota’s statement said the institute's test was equal to an 80-mph collision, which was “a speed and energy higher than 99.1% of all real world crashes."

With small cars susceptible to this kind of damage you can still get a larger one like that mentioned above the Honda Accord.

E. Dooley

15/04/2009