[vinair]

Happened to watch this crash test video of some famous brands and was left wondering if this is even more stringent than the Euro NCAP! Just look at Audi!! just couldn't believe it! and the Suzuki Kizashi!! that was a shocker!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KiFria6nCoc

[IshaanIan]

Yes the small frontal overlap test is the most difficult of them all since the test car's main frontal crush zones are in the center and it is very difficult to design them in the corners. What was honestly the most surprising to me (and quite pleasing to hear), was that the Kizashi, 2013 Accord and the 2014 Volvo S60, were the only ones that scored the IIHS top safety pick + award. The Krauts didn't make it to the list Even more shocking is that of all the cars compared, the Kizashi is the oldest (2010) no updates have been made to the car since and the car still battled it out amazingly well in the 2014 tests (really can't say I'm not feeling pretty smug )

[NinadJoshi]

The BMW protected the head/face of the occupant relatively better than others.

To my untrained eye, the drivers of almost all other cars would have ended up with a crack on the left side of the skull, or a snapped neck.

[IshaanIan]

Originally Posted by NinadJoshi

The BMW protected the head/face of the occupant relatively better than others.

To my untrained eye, the drivers of almost all other cars would have ended up with a crack on the left side of the skull, or a snapped neck.

You would be very wrong. Here's the list of results in further detail. The IIHS rates all these 5 star ENCAP cars, poor, marginal, acceptable or good.

Audi A4- POOR
Structure- Driver's space was seriously compromised. Footwell intrusion 28cm, instrument panel 25-28 cm, steering column 13cm.
Injury Measures- Injuries to the left hip will be likely.

BMW 3 Series- MARGINAL
Structure- Driver space was not maintained well with footwell intrusion measuring at 40cm and instrument panel at 16cm.
Injury Measures- Left and Right lower leg injury is likely.

Mazda 6- ACCEPTABLE
Structure- Driver space was maintained reasonably well. Lower interior intrusion measuring in at 13cm and instrument panel intrusion was 9-10cm.
Injury Measures- High head acceleration was measured causing the dummy's head to actually hit the steering wheel through the airbag giving likelihood to skull injury. The seatbelt had allowed excessive forward excursion of head and torso.

Chevrolet Malibu- MARGINAL
Structure- Driver space was not maintained well. Lower interior intrusion measured in at 21cm, upper hinge pillar and instrument panel intruded 15-18cm.
Injury Measures- Injury to the left knee and left lower leg is likely.

Suzuki Kizashi- GOOD
Structure- The driver's space was maintained well with maximum intrusion of the lower interior remaining under 15cm and upper interior was 6cm.
Injury Measures- Low risk of any significant injuries.

All information was read from the Insurance Institute of Highway Safety website.

Cheers!

[SmartCat]

I think this is called "offset crash test" (or something like that). The idea is the only a small minority of accidents are clean head-on collisions. In the real world, the car body impacts another object (trailer truck, car coming from the opposite side, concrete wall, tree etc) at an offset angle.

[Sankar]

Small overlap crash test, this is the toughest of all frontal crash tests. All the force of impact is channeled through only 25% of the frontal area.

Kizashi was launched in 2009 and this test was introduced in 2012, its really surprising that a car launched three years before the introduction of a particular crash test do well in it!

[KiloAlpha]

Some information from IIHS on their frontal crash tests:

http://www.iihs.org/iihs/ratings/rat...al-crash-tests

The small overlap crash test was developed after noticing in real world crash data that, if a car only slightly intrudes into the lane of an oncoming vehicle, or the vehicles attempt to take evasive action/manoeuvre, then only a small portion of the front part of the cars will collide with each other. And this is more likely than a full frontal impact.

[NinadJoshi]

Originally Posted by IshaanIan

You would be very wrong. Here's the list of results in further detail. The IIHS rates all these 5 star ENCAP cars, poor, marginal, acceptable or good.

Audi A4- POOR
Structure- Driver's space was seriously compromised. Footwell intrusion 28cm, instrument panel 25-28 cm, steering column 13cm.
Injury Measures- Injuries to the left hip will be likely.

BMW 3 Series- MARGINAL
Structure- Driver space was not maintained well with footwell intrusion measuring at 40cm and instrument panel at 16cm.
Injury Measures- Left and Right lower leg injury is likely.

Mazda 6- ACCEPTABLE
Structure- Driver space was maintained reasonably well. Lower interior intrusion measuring in at 13cm and instrument panel intrusion was 9-10cm.
Injury Measures- High head acceleration was measured causing the dummy's head to actually hit the steering wheel through the airbag giving likelihood to skull injury. The seatbelt had allowed excessive forward excursion of head and torso.

Chevrolet Malibu- MARGINAL
Structure- Driver space was not maintained well. Lower interior intrusion measured in at 21cm, upper hinge pillar and instrument panel intruded 15-18cm.
Injury Measures- Injury to the left knee and left lower leg is likely.

Suzuki Kizashi- GOOD
Structure- The driver's space was maintained well with maximum intrusion of the lower interior remaining under 15cm and upper interior was 6cm.
Injury Measures- Low risk of any significant injuries.

All information was read from the Insurance Institute of Highway Safety website.

Cheers!

Not trying to steal the thunder from the (/your) Kizashi, but I was merely looking at the video for the frontal airbag performance of the vehicles, not the overall cage performance. The IIHS site itself concurs with my simple observation:

Suzuki: The dummy’s head barely contacted the frontal airbag before sliding off the left side and leaving the head vulnerable to contact with forward side structure.


BMW: The dummy’s head loaded the frontal airbag which stayed in front of the dummy until rebound.

Everyone's knees and hips are obviously going to get crushed in partial side impacts like these. The bigger damage often comes from neck/spine and skull injuries.

I also wonder how many cars go on a partial-side impact against a concrete dead-block in real life. I would believe in most cases a car would hit another car (which too has its own crumple zone), and the energy should get dissipated/distributed between the two impacting cars resulting in less overall mutilation of the structure - unlike in the case of a concrete block where the impacting car takes the full brunt.

[bblost]

64 kmph does this damage on such expensive cars.
Think about it.

[IshaanIan]

Originally Posted by NinadJoshi

Not trying to steal the thunder from the (/your) Kizashi, but I was merely looking at the video for the frontal airbag performance of the vehicles, not the overall cage performance. The IIHS site itself concurs with my simple observation:

Suzuki: The dummy’s head barely contacted the frontal airbag before sliding off the left side and leaving the head vulnerable to contact with forward side structure.


BMW: The dummy’s head loaded the frontal airbag which stayed in front of the dummy until rebound.

Everyone's knees and hips are obviously going to get crushed in partial side impacts like these. The bigger damage often comes from neck/spine and skull injuries.

I also wonder how many cars go on a partial-side impact against a concrete dead-block in real life. I would believe in most cases a car would hit another car (which too has its own crumple zone), and the energy should get dissipated/distributed between the two impacting cars resulting in less overall mutilation of the structure - unlike in the case of a concrete block where the impacting car takes the full brunt.

Just went through more details on the site; no worries about that mate

True. I noticed the same. However the fact remains that the IIHS concludes that the Kizashi still scores higher than any of the rest in the video, leading to no likely-hood of any injury. The BMW was clearly (can be seen in the numbers) less structurally safe and also, unlike the Kizashi, they measured allowance of excessive excursion of the head and torso movement by the seatbelt in the BMW. Tally everything up and the Kizashi comes out clearly at the top. I would say a more interesting car to compare would be the Mazda 6 which did also score incredibly high on structural safety but it seems like the bad seatbelt was the sole reason for it loosing out on a "good" rating. (Had always imagined that seatblets in similarly priced cars were all the same. Can anyone shed some light on the differences?) You and I are merely spectators. I'm sure a safety organization would not have given an award to the wrong car

Yes typically it may be another car . Though it could very easily be a stationary car, large divider, unmarked metro construction walls etc. (we live in India) but this the test remains useful since this is how most accidents occur especially since people typically try steering out of harm's way. Who's complaining if a test is a little more stringent anyway?

[AbhiJ]

My observation:

Interesting thing to study ...

See the crash from the top view for BMW...

The car crumples all the way to the firewall (before the passenger cabin) and then get deflected. (The cars rear goes towards the right)

With the Kizashi, on impact, the entire car actually starts getting deflected to the right on impact. This makes the contact with the passenger cabin area smaller.

I think it is also the reason Kizashi turned out better than the others. Instead of absorbing the energy, it successfully deflected some of it.

My Query:

What could be the reason for this phenomena?

[sarathlal]

We are all familiar with the IIHS(Insurance Institute for Highway Safety) crash test videos.
Found this set of videos on their website grouped under "Inside IIHS', which details how broadcast-quality crash test footage is produced, with the behind the scenes footage on the work that goes behind what we normally see. Very informative so thought of sharing even though all information available at IIHS website. just got them compiled for ease of information.

Gaining the momentum -

The Crash propulsion system:
The crash test machinery that can propel a vehicle down any of the Vehicle Research Center's three runways and crash it into another vehicle or a barrier.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Y920_EvmCE

The guinea pigs -

Crash test dummies:
This video explores the types of dummies the Institute uses, how they are calibrated and the technology they contain for gathering information.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0-gOi6ZtwM

Getting ready -

Preparing for a crash test:
Shows how engineers at the Institute's Vehicle Research Center attend to every detail to ensure a smooth crash test with results that can be easily measured and compared with other vehicles.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mHhSizn8hMM

Capture 'em all -

Crash test photography:
Video explores what it takes to produce the high-quality, slow-motion footage needed to learn exactly what happened in a crash test and to communicate those findings to the media and the public.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SOy092KR_1c