The frontal offset crash tests aren't providing consumers with much useful information anymore. |
The Fusion is a disappointment because it's a brand new design. |
The Fusion is a disappointment because it's a brand new design. Ford has done a good job with some other recent models, but the Fusion is at the back of the pack among midsize cars for overall safety performance. |
The Fusion is a disappointment because it's a brand new design. Ford has done a good job with some other recent models, but the Fusion is at the back of the pack among midsize sedans for overall safety performance. |
The heads of both dummies were protected from being hit by any hard structures, including the intruding test barrier. Side airbags, especially those designed to protect the head, are key in reducing risks to people in side impacts. The Institute's test represents a crash in which the striking vehicle has a tall front end like a pickup or SUV, so head protection is critical. |
The institute's side-impact test mimics a real-world crash in which a pickup or SUV runs a red light or stop sign and strikes a vehicle in the side, ... The A6's double best-pick performance, especially, is the kind we hope to see every time we test a vehicle. |
The institute's side-impact test mimics a real-world crash in which a pickup or SUV runs a red light or stop sign and strikes a vehicle in the side. The A6's double best-pick performance, especially, is the kind we hope to see every time we test a vehicle. |
The key to reducing neck injury risk is to keep the head and torso moving together. To ensure this happens, a seat and head restraint have to work in concert to support the head, accelerating it with the torso as the vehicle is driven forward in a rear impact. This means the geometry of a head restraint has to be adequate, and so do the stiffness characteristics of the vehicle seat and head restraint. |
The laws of physics say you're going to be at a disadvantage. But small cars don't automatically mean you're at a severe risk. |
The performance of the G6 is dramatically better. |
The performances of the four large pickup trucks ranged from poor to awful. |
The Ram used to have the worst bumpers among the large pickup trucks the institute tested, but now it has the best bumpers. |
The result is disappointing for two reasons. One is that the Focus is a brand-new design, so Ford had every opportunity to design the bumpers to do a better job of reducing damage. The other reason is that the predecessor model, the Escort, had an illustrious early history of bumper performance. |
The sled test simulates the kind of crash that frequently occurs when one vehicle rear ends another in commuter traffic. People think of head restraints as head rests, but they're not. They're important safety devices. You're more likely to need the protection of a good head restraint in a collision than you are to need other safety devices because rear-end crashes are so common. |
These pickups may look tough, but they're clearly not tough at all when it comes to preventing damage in low-speed crashes. |