Click above for a high-res gallery of the smart fortwo crash tests.
The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) has finally released its official data on the smart fortwo, and it appears that the lil' urban runabout held its own during the IIHS' tests. The fortwo racked up a rating of "good" on both the frontal and side-impact tests, while rear impacts were scored as "acceptable." IIHS President, Adrian Lund, made it clear that normally bigger and heavier vehicles are the safer choice, "but among the smallest cars, the engineers of the Smart did their homework and designed a high level of safety into a very small package."
Make the jump to read all the details of the IIHS' findings.
[Source: IIHS]
PRESS RELEASE
First Institute crash tests of Smart car: diminutive two-seater earns top ratings for protecting people in front & side crashes
ARLINGTON, VA - The Smart car is getting a lot of attention for its small size and style, and now it's earning impressive crash test ratings. In recent Insurance Institute for Highway Safety tests, the 2008 Smart Fortwo, the smallest car for sale in the US market, earned the top rating of good for front and side crash protection. Its seat/head restraints earned the second highest rating of acceptable for protection against whiplash in rear impacts.
Smart Fortwo is classified a microcar, meaning it's smaller even than minicars. Weighing about 1,800 pounds, the Smart is more than 3 feet shorter and almost 700 pounds lighter than a Mini Cooper. It weighs about a third as much as one of the heaviest vehicles the Institute has tested, the BMW X5, a midsize SUV. As the price of fuel climbs and tougher federal fuel economy requirements kick in, auto companies are expected to introduce more small vehicles to the market. The Smart is the smallest car the Institute ever has tested.
"The big question from consumers is, 'How safe is it?'", says Institute president Adrian Lund. "All things being equal in safety, bigger and heavier is always better. But among the smallest cars, the engineers of the Smart did their homework and designed a high level of safety into a very small package."
The Institute's test results generally demonstrate how well vehicles stack up against others of similar size and weight. Frontal ratings can't be compared across weight classes, meaning a small car that earns a good rating isn't safer than a large car that's rated less than good.
"People base their buying decisions on a lot of factors," Lund says. "If you drive only in congested urban areas where speeds are low, a small car may be more practical than a big one. We conduct crash tests so people who want small cars can choose the ones that afford the best protection."
The Smart has a crashworthy design for its size and is equipped with the latest safety gear, which is especially important in a small car. This vehicle's standard equipment includes seat-mounted combination side airbags designed to protect both the heads and chests of the driver and passenger. Also standard is electronic stability control (ESC), called electronic stability program in the Smart. ESC helps drivers maintain control during emergency maneuvers or on slippery roads. It engages automatically when it senses vehicle instability, and Institute research has found that ESC lowers the risk of fatal single-vehicle crashes by about half.
Restraints do more of the work in frontal crashes: The Smart mostly lacks a front-end crush zone, which is a key component in reducing injury risk in serious frontal crashes. Typically, front-end structures are designed to crush and absorb crash energy, allowing occupant compartments to slow more gradually, ideally with little or no intrusion into drivers' survival space. Then a vehicle's safety belts and airbags slow occupants further and are designed to spread crash forces more evenly across people's bodies. The longer the front-end crush structure of a vehicle, the more gently occupants are slowed and thus protected from injury.
To compensate for the lack of front-end crush space, the Smart's restraint system does more of the work of absorbing energy as occupants "ride down" a crash. "We recorded a high head acceleration when the driver dummy's head hit the steering wheel through the frontal airbag," Lund explains. This indicates the test dummy used up all of the available ride down room in the Smart's interior.
A stiff side structure and standard side airbags contributed to the Smart's good rating in the side test, which replicates a crash with a pickup truck or SUV. Injury forces recorded on the driver dummy's head, neck, torso, pelvis, and left leg all were low. However, the driver door unlatched during the crash. This confirms a finding of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's side test of a Smart released last month. The Institute downgraded the Smart's structural rating from good to acceptable, but the opening didn't appear to affect dummy movement during the test, and injury measures on the driver dummy were low. Still, doors shouldn't unlatch because in some crashes it could allow partial or complete occupant ejection, especially if an occupant is unbelted.
Small car safety: While small cars are safer now than before, so are large cars. In every category of passenger vehicle (car, SUV, or pickup truck), the risk of death is higher in crashes of smaller, lighter models. For vehicles 1-3 years old during 2006, minicars experienced 106 driver deaths per million registered vehicles compared with 69 driver deaths in large cars.
People often choose very light cars for fuel economy, but "you don't have to buy the smallest, lightest car to get one that's easy on fuel consumption," Lund points out. "The Toyota Prius, for example, earns good front and side crash test ratings. It gets better fuel economy than a microcar, but it's bigger and weighs more so we would expect it would be more protective in serious crashes."
How the Smart was evaluated: The Institute's frontal crashworthiness evaluation is based on results of a 40 mph frontal offset crash test. A vehicle's overall evaluation is based on measurements of intrusion into the occupant compartment, injury measures recorded on a Hybrid III dummy in the driver seat, and analysis of slow-motion film to assess how well the restraint system controlled dummy movement during the test.
The side evaluation is based on performance in a crash test in which the side of a vehicle is struck by a barrier moving at 31 mph. The barrier represents the front end of a pickup or SUV. Ratings reflect injury measures recorded on an instrumented SID-IIs dummy in the driver seat, assessment of head protection countermeasures, and the vehicle's structural performance during the impact.
Rear crash protection is rated according to a two-step procedure. Starting points are measurements of head restraint geometry - the height of a restraint and its horizontal distance behind the back of the head of an average-size man. Seats with good or acceptable restraint geometry are tested dynamically using a dummy that measures forces on the neck. This test simulates a collision in which a stationary vehicle is struck in the rear at 20 mph. Seats without good or acceptable geometry are rated poor overall because they can't be positioned to protect many people.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 4)
Allan @ May 14th 2008 9:10AM
Dear SMART:
Stop making it harder to convince my girlfriend to NOT get one of these. Despite its impracticality in our situation, she continues to want one.
Thanks.
FThorn @ May 14th 2008 9:32AM
has she driven one yet? The rocking-horse action of the shifting and short wheelbase is a defining characteristic of my test drive.
why not the LS2LS7? @ May 14th 2008 11:38AM
Let her drive one. The transmission is intolerable. It's insane. the car doesn't roll side to side badly in turns, but at each shift, the car lurches forward as the power comes off, then 3/4 of a second later when the power comes back on, it tilts back again.
I can't understand who would pay for that.
Yago Bal @ May 14th 2008 12:41PM
You have to learn how to use it...
Cary @ May 15th 2008 12:39AM
God....You people and "the transmission shifitng problems." It is meant to be that way. It is for people who want the effective fuel consumption and lower inherent cost of a manual transmission, with the convenience of the lazy-matic transmissions Americans are all too comfortable with. As said by Yago, you have to learn how to use it to your advantage.
Ahmed @ May 14th 2008 9:16AM
These crash test make no sense. What are the odds of crashing a smart into another smart? They should crash cars into a stand weight of 4000 pounds or so so that these results are comparable.
Neil Schelly @ May 14th 2008 9:47AM
They've done that too. There are videos of this crashing a Mercedes E-Class and it does fine. The point is that the car is engineered safe and that a car's size has nothing to do with that.
-N
Holden Miecranc @ May 14th 2008 10:17AM
"All things being equal in safety, bigger and heavier is always better," said [IIHS] president Adrian Lund.
That said, I'll take my chances in a 36 MPG Cobalt for $14G instead of 41MPG in a $13G Smart.
J M C 3 @ May 14th 2008 10:51AM
To Neil...The frontal offset crash with the mercedes e class mashes the footwell area of the Smart.
Watch the whole video.
I went to a Smart dealer and THEY showed me the video of the frontal impact,but they didn't show the rest of the video,just the initial impact.
My point.The Smart's occupant's legs would be mashed to jelly.Be warned.
psarhjinian @ May 14th 2008 11:04AM
I wouldn't take my chances in a Cobalt versus a Smart. A Mini, Civic, Impreza or Rabbit, sure, but not in a bargain-basement compact that was built to the lowest price point possible. I'd buy that argument for a Malibu, but the Cobalt doesn't offer much (any?) crash protection over what a Smart would.
Seriously, check the safety ratings on the Cobalt: they're not good.
Mulad @ May 14th 2008 11:21AM
Mmmkay psarhjinian... Here are the NHTSA ratings:
2008 Smart:
Front collision - Driver: 4 stars
Front collision - Passenger: 3 stars
Side collision - Driver: 5 stars
Side collision - Passenger: not tested
Rollover - 3 stars
2008 Cobalt Coupe (2 door):
Front collision - Driver: 4 stars
Front collision - Passenger: 5 stars
Side collision - Driver: 4 stars
Side collision - Passenger: 4 stars
Rollover - 4 stars
2008 Cobalt Sedan (4 door):
Front collision - Driver: 4 stars
Front collision - Passenger: 5 stars
Side collision - Driver: 3 stars
Side collision - Passenger: 5 stars
Rollover - 4 stars
psarhjinian @ May 14th 2008 11:47AM
The point is, the Cobalt isn't appreciably better; unlike Smart-vs-SUV, they're pretty directly comparable. IIHS for the Cobalt:
Frontal:Good/Side:Average/Rear:Good
...and for the Smart:
Frontal:Good/Side:Good/Rear:Average
Compared to the Impreza or Civic (good across the board), neither are top performers but again, we're talking about small cars; the safety differences aren't huge because the weight difference is minimal. The Smart may not be good _value_, but that doesn't mean it's less safe than a compact that weighs only fractionally more.
BlazerUnit @ May 14th 2008 12:18PM
The IIHS side crash tests were conducted using a barrier mimicking a truck or SUV traveling at 31 mph. Front crashes were conducted with 40mph offset that all vehicles are tested with.
Are you really trying to say the tests aren't rigorous enough since the Smart fared well with them? If there's anyone with a vested interest in automobile safety, it's the insurance industry. More importance should be placed on their crash tests than should NHTSA's, IMO.
Holden Miecranc @ May 14th 2008 12:53PM
My point was that one can spend $13,000 for a two passenger Smart and get mileage that is not much better than a four passenger (5 in a pich) Cobalt XFE- not to mention a cargo area that is almost twice its' size. Yes, the Smart is safe for a car its' size, but as the IIHS president says, "All things being equal in safety, bigger and heavier is always better".
Dan @ May 14th 2008 1:19PM
You can't compare fixed barrier tests between vehicles of greatly dissimilar weight. The Cobalt weighs 55% more than the Smart.
The Smart is better in side impacts, night and day worse than the Cobalt in a head on crash.
Any significant front on collision in the Smart and you will probably not walk again. You can take that to the wheelchair store.
apearlman @ May 14th 2008 9:28AM
I suppose the crash tests are impressive, but this thing hasn't received very good reviews. I hope this expensive little turd doesn't give all small cars a bad reputation. If small cars are unpopular, then we get fewer choices of small cars.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/11/automobiles/autosreviews/11-smart-fortwo-la.html?scp=8&sq=smart&st=nyt
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/11/automobiles/autosreviews/11-smart-fortwo-ny.html?scp=9&sq=smart&st=nyt
FThorn @ May 14th 2008 9:30AM
Weighs more than a 90s Geo Metro. Get worse fuel economy.
nadnarb @ May 14th 2008 9:36AM
If I remember a 90's Metro would crumple in a head on with a mosquito. More safety robs both weight and mpg. Its still a good option for city dwellers where speeds dont get above 50 in most situations.
tenfifteen @ May 14th 2008 10:03AM
A good option for city dwellers is the subway, a bicycle or walking. I've seen three fortwos, all on the freeway (I work in DC, live in the metro area). IIHS numbers notwithstanding, at 1,800 pounds, you're at a 2:1 weight disadvantage with maybe 75% of the cars on the road, let alone your interior proximity to the doors, glass, etc. They note "high head acceleration" going through the airbag to impact the steering wheel. Eh. Yikes?
To me, these tests are informative, but aren't really accurate measures of real world accidents. Let's see an offset collision where a Smart collides with a mid-sized sedan and both cars doing 40mph. I think the results will be slightly different.
Or let's test the Smart in a redlight scenario. A fortwo traveling 30mph gets t-boned by a mid-sized sedan doing 40mph. Again, I think the results are going to be different, and that car is going to get knocked all over hell.
NHTSA (as reported by Edmunds) gives it only a 3-star rating in rollovers, and let's be realistic: This thing is going to roll in a good percentage of accidents it's involved in. Collision with a large SUV, and it's going to be like a flipper on a pinball.
Like the Prius, the Smart seems to me a means to display that you love the environment; "look how cramped I am! See how much I sacrifice for mother Earth?!?" In reality, you're having little real effect, and at least with the Prius (which gets much better mileage, btw), you've got some useable space.
For what it's worth, my wife's '08 Cooper S gets upwards of 39mpg freeway and ~26 around town, and it's got nearly +1000lbs and 130hp on this thing.
FThorn @ May 14th 2008 10:13AM
I would think that over time with high fuel prices, the size and weight AVERAGE of all cars on the roads will lower. And, crashes then at that time will be more favorable for the smaller/lighter cars statistically speaking.
Just a thought. Not really replying to anything.
I'd still like the tin can of a Metro much better than none of a motorcycle. (I know, I've hit a car T-bone style while riding a motorcycle)