You don’t want to look like this, do you?
That’s why it is so important, when getting a new car, to find out what the car crash test result is. This result can tell you a lot, from how well you’ll fare in a car accident, to how durable the vehicle is, to how much you will be paying for collision coverage on your car insurance premium. All of that is the kind of information that you need to know before you sign the contract to buy a new car. With all the safety features available these days, there’s really no excuse for a vehicle to have a bad car crash test result. But some do. However, crash tests aren’t the be all end all, and there are some things that you should no about them.
- Saying that a huge SUV did better in a crash test than a tiny compact car means nothing. If you’re going to compare crash test results between different cars, you have to compare them between similar cars. They should have no more than a 250 pound difference and be the same type of car. This only applies to frontal impact crash tests. Size impact crash test results are the same for all types of vehicles.
- All crash test agencies are different.They do the frontal crash tests differently. In the National Highway Traffic Safety Association, for example, the car goes straight into a solid obstacle. This isn’t like many real life accidents, where angles are varied and so it the barrier. The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, on the other hand, uses a different type of obstacle that is more like another car and helps bring the crash test result closer to what it would be like in a real life situation.
- Side impact car crash test results aren’t always reliable. Why is that? The sled that they use to crash into the vehicle is more like a smaller car than an SUV or truck, which makes things come out a little nicer. In addition, the injury projections in side impact crash tests depend on the damage to the dummies bodies, whereas in real life side impacts are more likely to injure a person’s head.
- Rollover crash test results, too, can’t always be trusted. It’s hard to know what can really happen in a real life situation just by looking at statistics, and that’s practically what NHTSA does with its rollover “crash test”. It just calculates a cras test result based on the car’s center of gravity instead of doing an actual test.
- Sometimes, the car you want just ain’t there. Not every car has a crash test done on it, and most of the time it is the more well sold cars that get crash test results.
Cheers,
Fashun Guadarrama.