Few Small SUVs Top the New IIHS Front Crash Prevention Test

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Only one of the first 10 small SUVs evaluated receives a good rating in the new, faster vehicle-to-vehicle frontal crash prevention rating, which evaluates performance with both a motorcycle and semi-trailer and a passenger car.

ARLINGTON, Va., April 25, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety is updating its vehicle-to-vehicle frontal crash prevention test to include higher-speed crashes and those where the vehicle struck is a motorcycle. to consider or large truck. Only one of the first 10 small SUVs evaluated receives a good rating.

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“This is an important update to one of our most successful testing programs,” said IIHS President David Harkey. “The vast majority of new vehicles are now fitted with automatic emergency braking and our research shows the technology prevents up to half of all front-rear accidents. This new, more stringent rating targets some of the most dangerous front-rear accidents still in existence.”

The Subaru Forester is the only small SUV to receive a good rating in the updated test. Two others, the Honda CR-V and Toyota RAV4, are rated acceptable. The Ford Escape, Hyundai Tucson and Jeep Compass receive marginal ratings, while the Chevrolet Equinox, Mazda CX-5, Mitsubishi Outlander and Volkswagen Taos all receive poor ratings.

The original vehicle-to-vehicle frontal crash prevention assessment was developed when the technology was relatively new, so the performance requirements only addressed low-speed crashes. By the end of the original evaluation with test drives at 12 and 25 miles per hour at the end of 2022, all vehicles tested achieved the top rating of “superior.”

While real-world data suggests that frontal crash prevention prevents accidents at higher speeds, the original test did not provide a way to measure the performance of specific systems at these higher speeds.

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Further IIHS research also showed that current systems are less effective at preventing accidents involving motorcycles and medium- or heavy-duty trucks than accidents involving other passenger vehicles.

A harder one check

To address these issues, the updated test includes trials at 31, 37 and 43 miles per hour (50, 60 and 70 kilometers per hour) instead of the previous speeds of 12 and 25 miles per hour. In addition to a car target, the performance is also examined with a motorcycle target and a semi-trailer. As a result, the new analysis reflects a significantly larger proportion of front-rear accidents reported by the police, including many more serious ones.

“Obviously, accidents that occur at higher speeds are more dangerous,” said David Kidd, a senior research scientist at IIHS who led the development of the new assessment. “Fatal underride accidents often occur when the vehicle struck is a large truck, and motorcyclists are often killed when they are struck by a car because their bicycle provides no protection from the impact.”

In the new evaluation, multiple experiments are conducted with a target representing a passenger car, a target representing a motorcycle, and an actual dry van trailer. The tests are carried out at all three speeds for each vehicle type. Surrogate testing is performed with the motorcycle or car target positioned in the center of the lane and offset to the left or right, while the trailer is always positioned in the center of the lane.

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The target tests evaluate both the forward collision warning system and the automatic emergency braking system (AEB). During each test run, an engineer drives the test vehicle toward the target at the selected speed and records when the forward collision warning occurs and how much the AEB system slows the vehicle to prevent or mitigate the impending impact. If the test vehicle fails to achieve a minimum speed reduction at the slower test speeds, only the forward collision warning system is evaluated at the higher speed tests.

During all test drives with the trailer, only the collision warning is evaluated and the driver steers out of the lane to avoid an accident.

Performance evaluation

Points are awarded for warnings that occur at least 2.1 seconds before the expected time of impact and for significant speed reductions in the AEB tests. Speed ​​reductions account for two-thirds and warnings a third of the maximum possible score.

The well-rated Forester avoided a collision with the car target at every test speed, avoided hitting the motorcycle target at 31 and 37 mph, and slowed an average of 30 mph in the 43 mph tests before he hit the motorcycle target. The forward collision warnings occurred more than the required 2.1 seconds before the predicted time of impact in all tests, including those carried out with the trailer.

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The acceptable CR-V gave timely warning of a collision and came to a stop or nearly a stop in each car target attempt and in the 31 and 37 mph motorcycle attempts. However, he was unable to consistently slow down during the 43-mile tests with the motorcycle finish.

Even vehicles with a Marginal rating in the new test demonstrate a higher level of performance than was required for the highest rating in the original vehicle-to-vehicle crash prevention rating.

For example, the Escape avoided hitting the car and motorcycle targets at the 50 km/h test speed and slowed slightly during the higher speed tests, regardless of where the targets were positioned. However, he lost several points because his forward collision warning came late in all 31 mph tests.

The four poorly rated vehicles did not perform well in several test scenarios.

For example, the Equinox provided a timely forward collision warning in the trailer and car target tests, but provided either no warning or a late warning in most of the motorcycle target tests. For the car target, the speed became slightly slower in the 31 mile tests, while for the motorcycle target the speed hardly decreased.

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Updated Front Impact Prevention Ratings: Small SUVs

2023-24 Subaru Forester: GOOD

Honda CR-V 2023-24: Acceptable

2023-24 Toyota RAV4: ACCEPTABLE

2023-24 Ford Escape: Marginal

2023-24 Hyundai Tucson: MARGINAL

2023-24 Jeep Compass: ROAD

2023-24 Chevrolet Equinox: BAD

2023-24 Mazda CX-5: BAD

2023-24 Mitsubishi Outlander: BAD

2023-24 Volkswagen Taos: BAD

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VNR:

Thu April 25, 2024, 10:30 a.m. – 11 a.m. ET; Repeat 1:30-2:00 PM ET (KU) GALAXY 19
SD transponder 10/slot 4 (dl11912H) bandwidth 6 MHz; Symbol rate 3.9787 FEC ¾

HD transponder 10/Ch AB (dl11900.0H) bandwidth 18 MHz; Symbol rate 13.235 FEC ¾

For more information, visit iihs.org

The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) is an independent, nonprofit scientific and educational organization dedicated to reducing deaths, injuries and property damage from automobile accidents through research and evaluation, and by educating consumers, policymakers and safety experts. IIHS is fully supported by auto insurers.

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• The 2023 Chevrolet Equinox crashes into a motorcycle target during a front crash prevention test at 31 miles per hour at the IIHS Vehicle Research Center in Ruckersville, Virginia.

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