Safety group drops front-crash test
Results no longer considered useful as most score well
Automakers score so well on a front-crash test that a safety group is doing away with it for most vehicles, saying the assessments no longer give consumers useful information.
More than 80 percent of 106 vehicle designs in the latest test got the highest grade of ''good" when the front driver side was crashed into a barrier at 40 miles per hour, said Adrian Lund, president of the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. None got the lowest grade of ''poor," and only two got the second-worst rating of ''marginal," he said.
''We're not getting much in the way of consumer information," Lund told reporters yesterday at the group's Arlington, Va., headquarters. The test result ''doesn't tell them how to choose a vehicle."
Ending the test lets the insurer-funded group direct more money to other safety areas, such as side-impact crashes, rollovers, and front crashes into poles. As much as 40 percent of the $1.5 million the group spends annually for vehicles and crash materials went to the test that has been ended, Lund said.
The Insurance Institute's decision is a sign of progress for the auto industry, said Charles Territo, a spokesman for the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, a Washington-based trade group that represents companies including General Motors Corp., Ford Motor Co., DaimlerChrysler AG, and Toyota Motor Corp.
''It's a testament to the amount of safety technologies manufacturers have incorporated into their vehicles," he said.
The institute's test results used to help consumers pick safer vehicles, Lund said. About half of 80 tested in the mid-1990s rated in the two lowest categories, ''marginal" and ''poor." Automakers since strengthened passenger compartments and made front ends crush a little more easily, he said.
The institute will continue rating vehicles for frontal offset crashes using automakers' own test results, Lund said. The group will occasionally audit the automaker results with its own tests to confirm their validity, he said.
The group today released ratings for 11 models based on automaker frontal offset crash results. Ten scored a ''good," including the 2007 Toyota Camry car and DaimlerChrysler's 2006 Dodge Ram 1500 large pickup truck. Only GM's 2006 Chevrolet Impala got the second-highest rating of ''acceptable."
GM spokesman Alan Adler said the test results the company turned in to the institute showed a ''good" rating. Lund said the group found an error in GM's calculations that lowered the rating one level.
