Prius c Rear Ended Experience

That is an interesting question, and I've never seen it answered completely. As far as assessing vulnerability in the case of a major rear-ending accident, I've been led to believe that we are FAR more at risk from the front and sides. I think part of the argument was that you are going in the same direction as the car hitting you, unlike a head-on crash where you're moving toward, and facing the other car. New Car Crash Tests only focus on injuries from the front and sides. Should a car crash into you from behind, you do have some crumple-zone built into the rear of your car, as well as head-restraints etc, but also the car crashing into you would have a crumple zone in the front of their car.

With "just caused paint damage on the bumper" - have you checked underneath to ensure that there isn't more damage behind the bumper. There is a steel reinforcement bar behind the bumper which can be pushed in and bent, but the bumper springs back into its normal place, looking like no damage was caused behind.

 

If you knew the direction of impact of the accident, then the safest position is the seat furthest away from impact. Since you don't know, the safest seat in the car is the middle space in the rear. The front seats are more dangerous because your speed going forward is magnified by the other driver coming towards you. It's mitigated by the engine usually at the front of the car but the rear is still safer.

This was what I was taught in my new parents class by a highway patrol officer. One of the biggest mistake parents do is buckle their child on one side of the rear seats for convenience. Rear-facing and in the middle seat is safest as long as they will fit in there.

As to how the c performs on a rear end collision. It's physics. It's going to perform poorly vs the regular Prius or other cars with more trunk space. You can make the argument into infinity. The Prius is going to perform poorly in a rear end collision versus a minivan. The minivan is worse than the full size pick up truck. The full size pick up is worse than a Hummer. Where do you stop on safety? How do you choose.

Assume you now drive a Hummer and someone swerves in front of you and you have hit them them or flip over because it's hard to avoid obstacles in a giant SUV. With the smaller and more nimble Prius c you could've braked and dodged the accident. Just as you described in the OP.

 

My own biggest personal concern with the rear seats has to do with the fact that I normally drive around with the headrests removed to improve visibility, and although I keep the headrests in the car I have a tendency to forget to install them in the infrequent times when I have passengers back there.

But the one big advantage that you have in a rear end collision compared to a front end one is that the speed of your own vehicle is almost certainly not going to contribute to the impact force. Behind hit from behind by a car traveling at 50km/h is a lot less severe than a head-on collision where both vehicles are traveling at 50 km/h each. So the rear end structure isn't likely to have to absorb nearly as much energy as the front needs to.

And while I have absolutely no expertise to back this opinion, I suspect that high g-forces applied from your back are a lot less likely to cause severe injuries than a frontal collision which results in you being restrained by a combination of your seat belt and airbags.

 

I was actually in a rear end collision this weekend. I was on the highway and there was disruption that caused traffic to slow down to about 55MPH. I was in the left hand lane at the time and a Mini Cooper rear ended my car traveling about 70MPH. Due to the similar heights of the vehicles the car's bumper handled the collision very well. The bumper cover is a little scratched up but the brunt of the force was absorbed by the bracket that attaches the metal bumper to the trunk pan. The positive thing is that appears to be a bolt on part and it doesn't appear to have bent any of the structural under body of the vehicle.

 

I know this is somewhat off topic from the main thread topic, but some folks on this forum, myself included, swapped out the rear headrests with lower profile ones from another model to increase visibility out the rear window. I used headrests from a '08 Scion TC.
Pic below is from the Japanese Aqua, once the headrests are installed it looks like the below.

I paid $40 via eBay for the rear set. Saved me from having to remember to put back and remove the taller headrests.

 

Re: "I normally drive around with the headrests removed to improve visibility" -

I have done that on occasions - I had one car which needed them removed to fold the back seats flat, and I rarely have passengers (non canine) in the back seat. But I remember something in the news a long time ago warning not to drive with passengers in seats with headrests missing - something to do with liability should an accident occur.

 

Another though which occurred to me - while there's a lot of focus on frontal crash tests, the fuel tank is in the rear of the car and NHSTA also has requirements for it to be protected in the event of collisions of various kinds. So I have a fair amount of faith that if the car's structure is strong enough to protect the fuel tank then it's probably also going to do a pretty reasonable job of protecting the occupants.