“The numbers confirm that strong performance in the institute’s small overlap front crash test translates into big reductions in fatality risk,” said Eric Teoh, IIHS’ director of statistical services and one of the study’s authors.
The institute added the small-overlap front crash test to its crashworthiness evaluations in 2012. One IIHS study at the time indicated that small-overlap front crashes — in which just 25 percent of the width of the vehicle collides with a barrier — accounted for about a quarter of the frontal crashes that killed or seriously injured drivers of vehicles that earned a “good” rating in the institute’s moderate-overlap crash test. The moderate-overlap test involves 40 percent of the width of the vehicle colliding with a barrier.
In the driver-side small-overlap front crash test, a vehicle travels at 40 mph toward a rigid barrier. A dummy representing an average-size man is placed in the driver’s seat.
IIHS’ test ratings are based on the amount of intrusion into the occupant compartment, injury-predicting measurements collected from the dummy and its engineers’ evaluation of how well the restraints controlled the dummy’s movement during the crash.
The institute said nearly all vehicles tested today earn a “good” rating in both driver- and passenger-side versions of the test.
