IIHS Top Safety Pick award

The bad thing about the fed testing is that most vehicles have mastered getting 5 stars. Getting 4 stars is somewhat uncommon. You really have to do a poor job to get 3 stars. They need to increase the energy in the test to make more differentiation.

On the plus side, the tests are complementary to the IIHS. For example, it is more difficult to design a car that gets top ratings in a full width frontal and frontal offset crash. Both types of crash are relatively common and apparently some design aspects can work for you in one type of crash but against you in the other.

Similarly, the side impacts simulate oncoming vehicles of different heights and dummies of different sizes. It's good to be able to do well in both tests, as you don't know what's going to hit you or who will be sitting there.

Do you have a link to that web page? I'd like to see that. The still have the explanation of the risk of injury in the star ratings, done on a study that correlated vehicle results to the risk of injury.

 

And the rear testing has a some subjective factors. It's not an actual crash test, but an analysis of seat back and head restraint design and a sled test. The problem is that it may only test seats from certain trim levels (for example, cloth on the Prius), assumes a certain dummy size and assumes a specific seat adjustment. It's quite possible that you would do much better or worse than the test results, given your own height and adjustments.

 

I just went through the NHTSA website...they must have taken the study down over the last 4-6 months or so.

 

I am told that the tests were indeed completed last week as expected and that Toyota now has the results. I have no idea what they are and standard procedure is that they are not disclosed for at least a couple weeks while everything is verified. Hopefully we will know around the end of the month or very early next month. I'll post something if I get it before it goes live on the NHTSA website, but I doubt that will be the case.

 

You are right, but IIHS has never tried to hide their corporate funding, so I have no problem with them.

IIHS also publishes an easy to digest summary of mortality data from FARS that is very informative.

 

NHTSA essentially confirmed what my contact at Toyota said-

Given that the tests have been completed now, I would guess that if they are not posted in that time frame, there is some debate or problem regarding the results.

 

So, I noticed that the 2010/11 Toyota Prius is NOT a top safety pick this year according to http://www.iihs.org/ratings/tsp_archive.html. I assume its because IIHS added the "roof crush test" where the car's roof needs to be able to sustain x4 the weight of the car in order to pass? x2 weight of the car is supposedly the federal safety standard for the US.

Comments anyone? I also wonder how much of the weight of the car then is actually supported by a 2010/11 Prius roof.

Personally I don't care much about the roof test, since a Prius isn't exactly a rollover-happy vehicle, and I'm not about to have a rollover anytime soon either.

 

Right, if a vehicle is untested or receives any worse than the top rating in any single test, then you can't get the top pick rating.

The rear end test is probably the least important of them. It's not even a crash test. It's a very subjective evaluation of the seat and head restraint to protect in a crash, based on an average sized dummy and a typical setting of the seat and restraint.