The IIHS have prepared a news series of crash tests in order to expand car safety even further. This is quite something because the methodology for frontal impact tests has not been changed since 1995. While this is exceptional news for drivers and passengers, it certainly exposed some chinks in the armor of some of the biggest names on the luxury sedan industry segment. For example the BMW 3 Series 2012, the Lincoln Sedan MKZ and the VW CC were all rated as “marginal” when tested with the new methodology. The news for Audi, Lexus and Mercedes were worse as the Audi A4, the Lexus IS and ES series alongside with the Mercedes Benz C Class scored even lower obtaining only “poor” by the Insurance Institute of Highway Safety. This was surprising news which we weren’t expecting from giants such as Volkswagen Group or Mercedes.
The news series of tests had the focus of simulating the impact with a pole or a tree while running at 40 mph. The idea was that the car wouldn’t hit the pole, tree or other similar obstacle head on but merely chipped with only a fraction of the car’s front side. These are considered to be some of the most dangerous types of collisions since first of all, this type of collision tends to “avoid” the energy absorptions designs within the car’s structure, not to mention that it could cause the car to flip over thus placing the passengers at high risk.
