Miami Injury Lawyer Blog
Only two cars received the top rating in tough front-end crash tests performed by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. The redesigned two-door and four-door Civics earned “good” ratings, while six of the twelve tested compact and subcompact cars performed poorly. The Ford Focus, Dodge Dart, Hyundai Elantra, and the 2014 Scion tC received “acceptable” ratings. These six cars all earned the IIHS’ coveted “Top Safety Pick Plus” award. The Chevrolet Sonic and Cruze, along with the Volkswagen Beetle received “marginal” ratings. The Kia Soul, 2014 Kia Forte, and Nissan Sentra were each rated “poor.” The IIHS did not test the Toyota Corolla because the company is releasing a new version of the car in the fall. With many buyers now downsizing from large SUVs to small compact cars, safety is critical in this quickly growing industry.
The IIHS put these cars through its “small overlap” test of crashes that cover approximately twenty-five percent of an automobile’s front end. The IIHS tests are tougher than the federal government’s full-width front crash test. According to the institute, in many vehicles, a crash involving one-quarter of the front end misses the main structures designed to absorb the impact. Yet these crashes account for nearly a quarter of all front-end collisions that cause serious or fatal injuries to drivers and passengers in the front seats. The institute conducts the “small overlap” test by crashing vehicles into a fixed 5-foot-tall barrier at 40 mph to simulate crashes into a utility pole or tree. The IIHS gives bad marks to vehicles whose structure intrudes into the passenger compartment, or if a crash dummy suffers injuries to its body.
The IIHS ratings are so influential because many buyers use them while researching vehicles. The small car market is booming in the U.S. Auto manufacturers have made the cars quieter and more refined as Americans who want better gas mileage turn to compact and subcompact cars. According to Autodata Corp., Americans have bought over 1.8 million new small cars so far this year, which is a twelve percent increase from last year. As a whole, small cars performed worse than midsize cars in the tests, but performed better than small SUVs.
Six of 12 small cars do well in front crash tests, www.palmbeachpost.com August 8, 2013
Consumer safety is a number one priority for the Coral Gables product liability lawyers at the Friedland | Carmona. Drivers must have access to safety information about the vehicles that they choose to purchase and must be able to feel safe in those vehicles as they operate them about the roadways. All too often, defects in automobiles that create safety issues are not found until it is too late. The Palm Beach personal injury lawyers have dedicated over twenty years to helping their clients recover compensation for injuries suffered as a result of a malfunctioning part in an automobile. If you or a loved one has been injured in an unsafe vehicle, call a Miami Beach motor vehicle accident lawyer today at (305) 661-2008 today for your free consultation. Don’t hesitate, call today!
The Miami automobile accident lawyers at the Friedland | Carmona handle all types of motor vehicle accidents throughout the state of Florida, including Boca Raton, Homestead, North Miami, South Miami, Miami Beach, Coral Gables, Pembroke Pines, Hialeah, Kendall, Aventura, Fort Lauderdale and Palm Beach. The Friedland | Carmona handles all types of personal injury cases, including wrongful death, defective products, medical malpractice, slip and falls and construction site injuries.