The insurance Institute for Highway Safety in the United States runs regular small-overlap crash tests to test the safety of cars in case of crash accidents. During these tests, cars are set to run through a frontal crash against immobile objects and a score is designated to each car according to the resultant damage caused by this crash.
In this article we will show you the results for some mini-cars. From the initial review, you’ll find that most of the cars showed results that are “below the bar”. The test is set to simulate the case of real frontal collision with another moving car or a stationary object like a street lamp or a tree. To simulate these cases in the test, 25% of the frontal area of the driver’s side of the car is set to collide against a stationary object at a speed of 64 K/H.
Today we will take a look at the results of 11 mini-cars tested during this crash test. Unsurprisingly, almost all the cars showed poor results on the test. Out of the 11 cars tested, only one car showed results the passed the test. It should be noted that this test is so tough that even large vehicles struggled to pass it since it was instituted in 2012.
The only car that passed the test among the 11 participating cars was the Chevrolet Spark. For this reason the Chevrolet Spark was the only car named the 2014 top safety pick. The IIHS test has 4 levels for result, namely Poor, Marginal, Acceptable, and Good.
The rest of the list contained Mazda2, Kia Rio, Toyota Yaris, and Ford Fiesta, and all of them scored “Marginal scores”, while the Mitsubishi Mirage, Nissan Versa, Toyota Prius C, Hyundai Accent, Fiat 500, and Honda Gitz all scored “Poor” on this test. A quick look at the results would give you an idea about the safety of mini-cars which turns out to be not so great. It also should be noted that the tested cars all are American specifications cars, unlike the cars that are found here in UAE and in the GCC region as all, so the one would expect to see different results even on the safety level.
Although this test may make you change your opinion on purchasing a mini-car, we must remind you that the IIHS test is a very tough test even for big cars. You can take a look at the results of other sedan cars to get a more clear idea about the nature of this test.
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