This institute crash-tests cars to make us all safer

[Karlston]

This institute crash-tests cars to make us all safer

Each time IIHS adds a new crash test, OEMs have to redesign their cars to pass.

 

RUCKERSVILLE, Va.—The wrecked remains of a 1959 Chevrolet Bel Air provide a stark illustration of just how far we've come with regard to automotive safety. The copper-coloured scrap greets you in the reception area of the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety's Vehicle Research Center, an automotive safety testing facility nestled between farms in the bucolic Virginia countryside a couple of hours from Washington, DC. IIHS was set up in 1959 by the insurance industry to work on improving the safety of our vehicles, and to celebrate its 50th anniversary, the institute crashed the Bel Air into its then-current equivalent—a 2009 Chevrolet Malibu. The institute did this to prove conclusively that "they don't build them like they used to. They build them better," to quote IIHS' then-president, Adrian Lund.

IIHS crashed these two cars into each other as a 50th-birthday present.

 

The mangled remains of the Bel Air aren't pretty. A wheel and tire mostly occupy the space that should be the driver's footwell. The metal dashboard to the left of the steering wheel is covered in pink and blue greasepaint from where the dummy's head made contact. The 2009 Malibu, while also a wreck, left its dummy in much better shape, thanks to seatbelts, airbags, and energy-absorbing crash structures. And yet, it too is eclipsed in the safety stakes by almost every vehicle on sale in 2019, in no small part thanks to the work conducted at the institute.

 

IIHS opened the Vehicle Research Center in 1992, and since then it has been smashing cars into things (and things into cars) in the name of improved safety. The institute is constantly studying real-world crash data and designing new crash tests as a result, and its tests make automakers sit up and pay attention. That's because safety sells in 2019, and the OEMs know they have to ace IIHS' tests if they want to earn its coveted "Top Safety Pick" or the even-tougher "Top Safety Pick+" badge of honor.

 

You might be wondering why IIHS even needs to crash-test cars in the first place; after all, isn't that the government's job? The program came about in 1995 after researchers noticed that most frontal collisions were offset—unlike the National Highway Safety Administration's New Car Assessment Program (NCAP) 35mph (56km/h) frontal impact test. NCAP's test was (and is) an effective measure of how a car's airbags and seatbelts protect the front-seat occupants. But because the force is equally distributed across the width of the vehicle, it is a less demanding test of how well a car's structure absorbs or redirects energy away from the humans inside.

 

So IIHS decided to start testing vehicles by crashing them (into a deformable aluminum honeycomb structure) at 40mph (65km/h) with a 40% frontal offset. The institute found something rather shocking—vehicles that scored well in NCAP did not necessarily ace the IIHS test. In fact, more than half of the cars it tested in this moderate overlap test got a marginal or poor result. (IIHS rates each test result as good/acceptable/marginal/poor, and it says that a driver in "a vehicle rated good in the moderate overlap test is 46 percent less likely to die in a frontal crash, compared with a driver of a vehicle rated poor.")

 

Studying for the test

At first, automakers were cold on the program. But that started to change the following year when Ford made the 1996 Taurus' IIHS score a selling point. Pretty soon, all the OEMs found religion, although it wasn't until 2013 that every car subjected to the 40mph 40% frontal offset test obtained a good score.

 

IIHS has kept car designers and engineers busy, though. In 2003, it added a 31mph (50km/h) side impact test. The key feature of this test is a 3,300lb (1,500kg) aluminum honeycomb crash structure being fired into the driver's side of a car carrying two female test dummies (one in the driver's seat, one sitting behind her).

 

In 2009, a rollover test for roof strength was created, and in 2012, the institute introduced a small overlap frontal crash test. Still at 40mph, this collision involved a solid metal barrier offset so that it spanned just 25% of the vehicle's width. The introduction of each new test followed the same pattern: most scores were initially poor and marginal, but they changed to good as models emerged from midlife refreshes or complete redesigns. (Scoring merely acceptable and not good on this test is what kept the Tesla Model S from a Top Safety Pick+ in 2017.)

 

A third frontal impact test followed in 2017. IIHS' analysis of real-world crash data showed that it was mainly drivers and not passengers who were benefiting from improved car design as a result of the small offset test—proof if it were needed that people will design vehicles to pass the tests and just the tests. To force the OEMs to protect passengers, too, this third test is a mirror image; the passenger side is the one subjected to the 40mph, 25% offset collision. (The test vehicle also carries adult Hybrid III crash test dummies in both front seats as opposed to only the driver's seat as in the other two frontal impact tests.)

Head restraints and seats

Some of the other tests that go into getting a 2019 Top Safety Pick are a bit less destructive. In addition to achieving a good rating in the driver-side small overlap, moderate overlap, side, and rollover tests (as well as good or acceptable in the passenger-side small overlap), a car also has to earn a good rating for its head restraints and seats. (This is tested using a sled that simulates a 20mph rear-end collision.)

 

And the car's headlights also have to pass muster, both with regard to how much light they can throw down the road but also how well they minimize glare for oncoming vehicles. The rate of improvement in this test yet again confirms how much attention automakers pay to IIHS' tests. When the headlight test was added in 2016, only two out of 95 vehicles got a score of good. Two years later, 32 out of 165 vehicles achieved top marks. Or at least they did when optioned correctly. As anyone who has recently shopped for a new car will know, automakers will often differentiate trim packages with different headlights, and the best-performing rides are invariably locked up in the options list.

 

Starting next year, each car's overall rating will depend on the headlights fitted to the cheapest model. Although this must infuriate car makers, it should be applauded by the rest of us, and it ought to incentivize OEMs to make such features standard.

 

It’s not just about passive safety

Since 2013, active safety features have also been factored into IIHS' rating system. That was when it began its frontal crash prevention program, which tests how well a car's automatic emergency braking (AEB) system works. Cars are tested by driving toward an inflatable target that resembles the back of a car (both to optical and also radar sensors) at 12mph (20km/h) and 25mph (40km/h); systems that avoid hitting the target at both speeds get a superior rating. (In fact, in 2016 20 automakers pledged to make AEB standard on all their cars by 2022.)

 

IIHS is also testing other advanced driver-assistance systems (ADAS), although not as part of its top safety pick program (yet). In 2017, the institute found that vehicles fitted with lane-departure warning systems were involved in fewer crashes. Last year, we reported the results of its first assessment of adaptive cruise control and lane-keeping systems. And it has also begun to evaluate AEB with pedestrian detection, as well as rearward AEB systems.

 

IIHS continues to develop new crash-test procedures. On the day that I visited, we witnessed one of these research tests, focused on rear-seat occupant safety. As with IIHS' previous tests, this one arose from a perceived need. In this case, the institute wanted OEMs to fit the rear seats with the same seatbelt devices (pretensioners and force limiters) as those in the front seats.

 

This test was also a 25% frontal offset at 40mph, but it carried three test dummies—an adult male up front and two child dummies (one male, one female) in the back. As you'll note in the photos, the Chevrolet Equinox didn't behave perfectly: one of the children's heads ended up between the window and the side curtain airbag.

 

Source: This institute crash-tests cars to make us all safer (Ars Technica)

 

(To view the article's image galleries, please visit the link above)