Side-Impact Crash Tests

No wonder. As tall-riding vehicles such as sport-utility vehicles, vans and pickup trucks have grown in sales, they're being scrutinized more than ever for how they impact roadway fatalities and injuries.

In 2003 the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety began new side-impact crash tests that the insurance industry-backed group says better predict a vehicle's safety when it's struck by a high-riding vehicle such as an SUV. The first tests, conducted in 2003 and 2004, were sobering: Just two of twelve small SUVs tested and two of ten midsize sedans were rated "good." They were the 2003 Subaru Forester and 2003 Ford Escape with optional side airbags and the 2004 Toyota Camry and Honda Accord, both with side airbags.

Meantime, the federal government's National Highway Traffic Safety Administration planned to propose new side-impact crash tests of its own in 2004. Spokesman Tim Hurd said he did not have details, but he expected them to be issued in the second quarter of the year.

Keeping Up With the Times
NHTSA began side-impact crash tests in 1997, initially with cars. In 1999, the agency began crash tests of pickup trucks, vans and SUVs.

NHTSA testing of side crashes involves placing a dummy, representative of a 50th percentile man, into the driver's seat and another in the rear passenger seat of a vehicle, then slamming a barrier into the driver's side at 38.5 miles an hour.

The barrier deforms some in the crash, mimicking the front of another vehicle, and dummies are belted into their seats. Scientific instruments measure injuries that the dummies sustain, providing a rating of one to five stars to indicate the likelihood of serious or life-threatening injury. A higher star rating relates to a lower chance of serious injury.

Vehicles that have received five stars in side crashes include such disparate models as the 2004 Honda Civic Coupe with optional side airbags, 2004Mercury Marauder sedan, with standard side airbags, and the 2004 Lexus IS 300 SportCross wagon, which also comes with standard side airbags.

Vehicles that did poorly in NHTSA's side-impact testing include the 2004 Ford Focus hatchback, which received one out of five stars for rear-passenger protection, and the 2004 Nissan Sentra, which was rated two out of five stars for front-seat protection in a side crash. The 2004 Kia Rio also received two out of five stars for driver and rear-seat occupant protection in side crash tests.

Like frontal crash tests, side-impact tests are part of NHTSA's formal New Car Assessment Program (NCAP).

Different Kind of Side Test
The IIHS chooses to perform a different side-impact crash test. The barrier used by the Arlington, Va.-based group is about a foot taller than NHTSA's in order to better mimic a tall-riding SUV or truck. IIHS spokesman Russ Rader said, however, the barrier isn't designed to represent one specific kind of SUV, say a full-size Ford Expedition or a midsize Nissan Pathfinder.

The IIHS barrier strikes the vehicle at 31 mph, which is slower than NHTSA's speed. Additionally, the IIHS uses a smaller crash dummy. Rather than the 50th percentile male dummy, the IIHS uses a dummy that's representative of both a petite woman and an adolescent.

"One of the reasons we decided to use these crash test dummies is we wanted to make sure side airbags are designed to come down far enough to protect small occupants," Rader said, adding that earlier development work indicated women could be vulnerable in some side crash circumstances, even in vehicles with side-curtain airbags.

"What we want this test to do is push the automakers to beef up their side structure and make wider use of side airbags," he said. "We think side airbags should be standard equipment."

Results Tell a Story
In side-impact crash testing by both NHTSA and the IIHS, vehicles with strong side structure as well as good-sized side airbags appear to do better in crash tests than vehicles that do not have both these features.

For example, the 2004 Camry and Accord without side airbags earned "poor" ratings from the IIHS in side-impact crash tests while the same models with side airbags installed—they were optional for the 2004 models—received the institute's "good" rating.

The 2004 Chevrolet Malibu was rated "acceptable" by the IIHS when crash-tested with side airbags. It earned a "poor" rating without the optional side airbags. "The optional curtain airbag did a good job of reducing the injury measures recorded on the dummies' heads, but the torso injury measures for the driver dummy were too high and there was too much intrusion," said Brian O'Neill, IIHS president.

Chevy's parent company, General Motors Corp., said with or without side airbags, the 2004 Malibu was safe and added that one crash test doesn't give a full picture. The Malibu . . . performed well in GM's battery of tests that replicates a wide array of potential real-world circumstances that a driver may encounter," the company said in a statement.

GM also commented on another of its cars—the 2004 Saturn L300. The L-Series had been widely touted by GM in 2001 as the first midsize car in its price range to come with standard curtain airbags. But O'Neill said "side-curtain airbags need to cover enough of the window area to prevent people's heads from sliding underneath or around them. Even though the head injury measures on the driver dummy in the Saturn weren't high, head contact with intruding objects should be prevented. The Saturn airbag doesn't do this for shorter occupants."

GM said, however, the L300 "was designed well before the new IIHS test existed, and was not designed with this particular test in mind." The company added that "this single test is not indicative of the vehicle's real world safety." Asked whether Saturn will make changes to its airbags in light of the IIHS test, GM spokesman Jim Schell said "we haven't announced any changes."

NHTSA Findings
Comparing the NHTSA side-impact tests to the IIHS' shows some different results and some similar ones. The L-Series received a rating of three out of five stars for protecting a driver in a NHTSA side crash and five out of five stars for rear-seat passenger protection.

NHTSA hadn't yet released its side-impact crash test results for the 2004 Malibu, but it gave the 2004 Accord five out of five stars for side impact protection both front- and rear-seat passengers. Honda spokesman Andy Boyd noted Honda considers airbag technology so important it's a "core competency" that automaker officials believe they need to engineer themselves. Thus, the automaker doesn't buy "off the shelf" airbag technology but uses its own design, he said. This design includes Smart Fold, a technique of folding the airbag fabric in such a way to ensure that side-curtain airbags deploy downward first, then outward, to avoid hanging up above a passenger's head.

Airbags can't do it all. How strong a vehicle's side structure is also plays a key role in protecting passengers from injury in a side crash. The IIHS said the 2004 Hyundai Sonata was "poor" because despite head and torso airbags, there was considerable intrusion of the crash barrier into the car's structure, resulting in significant torso and pelvis injury.

But the 2004 Sonata earned four out of five stars for protecting the driver and rear passenger in NHTSA's side impact testing.

Automakers or Consumers Decide
Honda and its luxury brand, Acura, are moving aggressively to put side airbags in nearly all vehicles as standard equipment, even though the federal government has not made this a requirement. NHTSA spokesman Hurd said that aside from noting in the agency's "Buying a Safer Car" brochure which vehicles offer side airbags, "there's no real way for us to say if it's a good idea" to have side airbags installed in a vehicle. But the IIHS has no such hesitancy. "What we know from real crashes in side impacts is that head protection airbags, whether curtain airbags or the combination head/torso (side airbags), can reduce the risk of fatalities by about 45 percent," he said.

By the end of calendar 2005, some 80 percent to 85 percent of new Honda and Acura vehicles will have side airbags standard, with virtually all new Hondas and Acuras having them by the end of calendar 2006. A few low-volume models, such as the Honda S2000 and Acura NSX, will be exceptions.

Some automakers, such as Volkswagen, Mercedes-Benz, Lexus and BMW, already have standard side airbags—side-mounted and/or curtain or ceiling-mounted tubular airbags—on all their vehicles. At Mercedes, side-mounted bags have been standard on all models since 1998. At VW, side-mounted bags have been standard since 1999, a spokesman said. "It's just because of Volkswagen's commitment to safety," he said.

And even automakers that have side airbags standard in all models are making improvements. For example, in the 2004 model year, the Lexus RX 330 and ES 330 got larger side airbags for better protection against injury in the torso and pelvis areas.

Asked what a consumer should look for, automaker officials acknowledged there's no easy way to find out, on the surface, whether a car has a particularly strong side structure. Automakers also don't typically tell how large their side airbags are, except to describe them as curtain bags or head or torso bags.

So, Rader from the IIHS advised consumers to look at both the IIHS and NHTSA side impact test results. Don't expect to find every vehicle there, though. The new IIHS side crash tests just began in summer 2003, and NHTSA, a Washington, D.C. government agency, is limited by budget constraints.

Ann Job is a writer for T&A Ink media group.

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