The Volvo S60 receives the highest score in the new IIHS small overlap crash test. Check out the video below or view the full news release .
The Insurance Institute
for Highway Safety (IIHS) recently performed a new test - the small overlap
crash test - on 11 luxury model vehicles to help better judge potential fatality
during a side-frontal impact. The 2012 Volvo S60 outperformed all 11 of these
luxury models, with just The Volvo S60 and Acura TL receiving "good" ratings,
and only one other model being rated as"acceptable".
"Nearly every new car performs well
in other frontal crash tests conducted by the Institute and the federal
government, but we still see more than 10,000 deaths in frontal crashes each
year," says IIHS President Adrian Lund. Lund proceeds to
explain that it is small overlap crashes, as in the video above, that are a
major source of these fatalities.
The previous frontal
crash test performed by IIHS measured impact on the front and center of
vehicles, but the small overlap crashes account for approximately 25 percent of
all motor vehicle accidents and are additionally more fatal.
According to the
IIHS, "In the test, 25
percent of a car's front end on the driver side strikes a 5-foot-tall rigid
barrier at 40 mph. A 50th percentile male Hybrid III dummy is belted in the
driver seat. The test is designed to replicate what happens when the front
corner of a car collides with another vehicle or an object like a tree or
utility pole."
Below, you can see a chart comparing the small overlap
crash test results among all 11 luxury vehicles:
