2011 front and side crash tests Nissan Leaf | Consumer reports
Small overlap test The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety IIHS testing a Chevrolet Spark.
Although vehicles in general are much safer in collisions they were, more than 20,000 people traveling in passenger vehicles die in accidents every year many factors contribute to fatal accidents, including dangerous driving, not wearing seatbelts, poor road conditions and the vehicle accident prevention capabilities But the actual vehicle you are sitting when an accident occurs can make a difference of life or death.
Crash tests provide an overview of the protection offered by the vehicle itself as a secondary benefit, estimates of the accident published encourage car manufacturers to continually improve but with two governments of primary testing agencies and industry insurance, several tests on each car, and allegations of competing manufacturers, it can be difficult to understand all this crash test primer will help you understand the information that matters most.
design and structural safety systems determine how a vehicle protects its occupants, but it's only independent crash testing under controlled conditions that differentiates a car from another and tells us how to work well together its key components is a crash test reducing the vehicle to a shattered wreck, but a good structural design passengers intrusion guard space to important safety minimum system such as seat belts, airbags and headrests play a key role in moderating, positioning and depreciation occupants during a collision occurs.
The two sources of information to independent crash tests are the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration NHTSA, a branch of the Department of Transportation and the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety IIHS, a group of independent safety research sponsored by automobile insurance companies using different methodologies, both organizations carry out frontal crash and side crash further NHTSA tests propensity rollover and IIHS evaluates rear crash protection and roof strength.
View videos of how cars perform in IIHS frontal and side crash tests.
As part of its new car assessment program, the NHTSA scores its tests using a scale of one to five stars; more stars, the lower the risk of injury or death IIHS uses a scale with four levels of poor, marginal, acceptable and good.
From late 2010, NHTSA revamped the way it conducts and crash test scores Changes are deep enough that new stars for evaluations 2011 and following models are not comparable to those assigned to 2010 models precedents.
new star rating system NHTSA should provide better information In the old system, most vehicles were garnered four or five stars in all categories The new system intends to be more discriminating.
Some cars that were earning five stars earned only three under the new system that is because the NHTSA is now taken into account several parameters injury, added more tests and is including modeling data representing a small adult female instead of an average size adult male.
NHTSA has fundamentally changed the way it allocates star ratings While under the old system, the scores were based on a probability calculation of serious injury, the new system will compare cars with each other so it won t be enough to, say, a car to ensure proper protection of the head to get a better score, he must now ensure better head protection than most other cars.
The key elements of the post-2010 crash ratings from the NHTSA.
NHTSA assigns a single score of overall security that combines the results of front, side and rollover tests results before crash-weigh more heavily in the overall score.
The full frontal crash test 35 mph uses a new small model 5th percentile adult female instead of a male model 50th percentile on the passenger side.
Additional measures for the deflection of the chest, neck extension and femur and foot injuries were added to the score before the accident.
The side impact includes data from head, chest, abdomen and pelvis, instead of just the breast The rear passenger is 5-percentile female dummy, instead of a 50th percentile adult, and includes data head and pelvis.
A test laterally pole was added, using the small adult female mannequin.
test before the crash NHTSA accelerates a straight vehicle in a rigid barrier at 35 mph with the entire width of the front portion of a vehicle hitting the barrier bearing Instrument, crash test dummies belt seats in two front seats to record the level of impact forces on the head, neck, chest and legs These measures are correlated with injury, but before the results of the head and chest were the basis of the stars individual star ratings are assigned to the driver and front passenger Some automotive experts have criticized NHTSA-frontal, rigid barrier test as unrealistic because the head on accidents in a flat, solid wall are other relatively rare argue that the world real or not, the flat barrier testing is a good way to evaluate the effectiveness of the restraint systems, mainly seatbelts and airbags.
Side crash test NHTSA shows a vehicle struck the left side by a 3015 car travel books 38 5 mph This scenario mimics what might happen if you were hit on the side of an individual mark-star intersection scoring side impact are assigned to the driver and left rear passenger for pre-2011 models, only a chest injury extent dictated the score for 2011 models and later the score factors in the head, the chest, the abdomen, and pelvis data injuries to the driver and the head and pelvis for the rear seat passenger.
The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety IIHS front-crash tests are very different NHTSA s in that they're designed to highlight the structural integrity of the vehicle, and the IIHS restraint performance now makes two series of tests before-crash, which commits 40 percent of a vehicle ahead and a new test, launched in 2012, which uses a small overlap, committing only 25 percent of the front of the car.
Both simulate what would happen if two cars of the same weight and type crashed frontally, which partially overlap the test more, with 40 percent offset, engages the front right side of the driver The new test is more like a head on accident where two cars hit flagship left to left headlights or accident to a single vehicle in a fixed object such as a utility pole or tree These are very different from the full width accident NHTSA uses two pre-crash scenarios IIHS using an impact velocity of 40 mph instead of 35 mph; and only the left side of the car hits the barrier The 40 percent recovery test uses a deformable barrier while the recovery test 25 percent using a rigid barrier.
One effect of the new small overlap test is that the vehicle tends to turn around the point of impact that the product Since the accident the occupants then move to the side and forwards, the test poses new challenges to seat belt and air bag systems although it is a frontal crash, side air bags may need to deploy as well, many cars are not designed to withstand hit a corner as well as they manage impacts that engages a larger portion of the front can be more intrusion into the foot-well operator, which can cause severe leg injuries.
Both IIHS frontal tests are more stringent than the NHTSA's because the speed is higher and the collision energy is concentrated on a smaller area In both cases, a crash dummy fitted instrument records the driver's seat forces the head and neck, chest, legs and feet are classified as vehicles good, acceptable, marginal, or poor based on what happens to the vehicle structure and the forces on the dummies.
The IIHS side impact test is more severe than the NHTSA's test uses a heavier hit barrier to 3,300 books, compared to NHTSA s to 3,015 pounds Moreover, the IIHS barrier hit higher on the test vehicle to simulate a car being hit on the side 90 degrees typical height SUV or truck IIHS bases its scores on the head, neck, chest, abdomen, pelvis and leg injuries.
The two models in the side impact test IIHS represent a small adult female or teenager aged 12, is the driver and the other passenger left rear Other crash tests conducted by NHTSA and the IIHS uses a model that simulates an adult male of average height.
View videos of how cars perform in IIHS frontal and side crash tests.
Although common, not many rear-end collisions are fatal but they do cause many injuries, including a sudden trauma rabbit neck IIHS evaluates rear impacts with physical inspections and tests Accident crash test, which is performed with the vehicle seat attached to a sled movement simulates a rear collision roughly equivalent to a stationary vehicle being struck at 20 mph by a similar weight vehicle.
The key to rear impact protection is Restraints headrest design must be sufficiently high and positioned close enough to the back of the head in the cradle of the head of an occupant in a rear collision These constraints are clearly too low or poorly designed automatically receive a poor rating from IIHS, while those who have a chance to make a decent protection are tested crash.
Crash tests are useful in evaluating how a vehicle can protect passengers in case of accidents, but no test is infallible or universal For example, most tests use an average crash test dummy average 50th percentile, and smaller or larger than this can not be protected, and the scores indicate Here are some other factors that influence how you should see the scores.
Since the crash tests performed before by NHTSA and IIHS simulate a collision between two vehicles of the same weight and height, don t scores apply to accidents between vehicles mismatched During a collision between a big car and a small , you are usually better off in the large car in this case, the larger, heavier vehicle projects over the collision energy in a smaller this, in turn, helps protect the occupants of the larger vehicle, but it can proportionately cause injury to the occupants of the smaller vehicle.
In addition to their weight, the bumper more on many larger vehicles such as vans and sport utility vehicles contributes to truck car mismatch vs When an SUV or truck hits a typical car, the impact occurs above the car's bumper line, exerting his strength in the weaker parts of the smaller vehicle and inflict more damage to resolve this issue, especially car-based SUV models are designed with lower, more compatible bumper.
Side impact tests apply more widely than the pre-crash results do from the striking vehicle is the same in all tests from the NHTSA and IIHS in all tests, the results apply in all classes other words, a good side impact score for a small car is the same as that of a good for a big car it means that the side impact results can be compared in all vehicle size classes.
When shopping for new car, choose one with good crash rating in front and side-class Most categories of vehicles offer good choices, so you needn t usually that compromise safety.
The vast majority of cars before 2011 won the impact four or five stars for front and side NHTSA Such narrow spectrum performance limited the usefulness of the ratings themselves more demanding IIHS crash tests can better help narrow your choice of car Other things being equal, choose a vehicle that IIHS rates Good or acceptable in each of its tests.
As the results of crash tests show impact side airbags are an essential safety feature and side air bags that protect the head and chest are preferable to those which protect only the chest.
Ultimately, security is active and passive, the balance between the ability to avoid an accident and survive a Besides air bags, belts and structural integrity, studies have shown that the electronic control ESC stability is an effective life-saving technology from the 2012 model year, ESC became standard on all passenger vehicles when buying used, you must be diligent to ensure the specific model you are considering is equipped with ESC.
Consumer NHTSA crash test reports, NHTSA accident test.