Most small car designs earned poor ratings in side-impact crash tests recently conducted by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. The test represented what happens when a passenger vehicle is struck in the side by a pickup truck or SUV.

“These side-impact results are similar to the results in 1997, when the institute first rated small cars in the frontal offset crash test,” said Adrian Lund, chief operating officer for the IIHS. “Back then, no small car earned a good frontal crash test rating. Now, almost every small car earns a good rating in the frontal test. As manufacturers redesign their vehicles, we expect that small cars will get better in the side-impact test too.”

Only the Chevrolet Cobalt and Toyota Corolla, both equipped with optional side air bags with head protection, performed well enough to earn the institute's second highest rating of acceptable. Without the optional air bags, the Cobalt and Corolla were rated poor for side-impact protection.

Recommended For You

Want to continue reading?
Become a Free PropertyCasualty360 Digital Reader

Your access to unlimited PropertyCasualty360 content isn’t changing.
Once you are an ALM digital member, you’ll receive:

  • Breaking insurance news and analysis, on-site and via our newsletters and custom alerts
  • Weekly Insurance Speak podcast featuring exclusive interviews with industry leaders
  • Educational webcasts, white papers, and ebooks from industry thought leaders
  • Critical converage of the employee benefits and financial advisory markets on our other ALM sites, BenefitsPRO and ThinkAdvisor
NOT FOR REPRINT

© Touchpoint Markets, All Rights Reserved. Request academic re-use from www.copyright.com. All other uses, submit a request to [email protected]. For more inforrmation visit Asset & Logo Licensing.