IIHS Report

Driverless Transportation took a trip down to Ruckersville, Virginia to tour the Vehicle Research Center (VRC) of the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS). The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety is an independent, nonprofit, scientific and educational organization dedicated to reducing the cost in human life, injury and property damage of automobile accidents. One way they do this is by crash testing a wide range of vehicles in order to determine how safe they are. IIHS was founded in 1959 by three major insurance companies that at that time represented eighty percent of the auto insurance market. They are still funded today exclusively by auto insurance companies.

IIHS crash tests most vehicles except for high end luxury cars, sports cars, large SUVs and pickup trucks. These vehicles are either driven by a small segment of the population, are prohibitively expensive or, due to their weight, are already larger and safer than the average car. Consumers can use the information when purchasing a vehicle to find a safer automobile. Over the years, the IIHS ratings have gotten substantial media attention and this has driven auto manufacturers to improve the crashworthiness of their cars. They are now also using it in their marketing programs.

A tour of the VRC starts in a showroom with displays of all sorts of crashed cars illustrating a variety of damage and explanations of that damage. It is essentially a museum of car test crashes. One of the most memorable exhibits was a 1959 Chevy Bel-Air and a 2009 Chevy Malibu, two mid-sized cars by the same manufacturer separated by fifty years. They were crashed into each other in 2009 as part of the organization’s fifty year celebration. The differences in the wrecks were striking. It’s a common misconception that older cars are tougher, stronger and thus safer than newer cars because they were made of heavy steel rather than lighter modern materials. The expectation is that an older car would destroy a newer car in a crash with minimal damage. This was not the case. Both cars suffered crippling damage and while the 1959 Bel-Air’s hood was in better shape than its successor, the passenger compartment was destroyed. The left side was completely caved in, leaving nothing but twisted metal and crushed glass. It is likely that occupants of 1959 Bel-Air would have been killed instantly.

The 2009 Malibu was a very different case. The hood was completely crushed but in a more uniform manner than its predecessor. The windshield was broken but still held together in the frame. Most importantly, the damage to the passenger compartment was greatly reduced. The backside of the car from the back seats onward was completely intact. The occupants in the front seats would not likely have suffered severe or lethal injuries. Occupants in the back seats would have likely suffered little injury with their seatbelts fastened. This display provided undeniable proof that cars have gotten safer, not more vulnerable.

Today, the IIHS rates vehicles using five tests: moderate front-overlap impact, small front-overlap impact, side impact, roof strength, and head restraint. The IIHS rates each vehicle on each test on the following scale: Poor, Marginal, Acceptable and Good. In addition, this year the IIHS added a test for front crash prevention. To qualify for a 2014 TOP SAFETY PICK, a vehicle must earn good ratings in the moderate overlap front, side, roof strength and head restraint tests, as well as a good or acceptable rating in the small overlap front test. To qualify for a 2014 TOP SAFETY PICK+, a vehicle must meet the TOP SAFETY PICK criteria, plus earn a basic, advanced or superior rating for front crash prevention.

Moderate overlap testing and small overlap testing involve sending the vehicle hurtling down a long runway inside the crash hall into a large barrier of aluminum honeycomb in front of a 320,000lb barrier of steel and concrete. At the time of impact, the vehicle under test is running at about 40 mph. Moderate overlap testing is when 40% of a car’s front collides with the barrier to represent a head-on collision. When the IIHS began moderate overlap testing in 1995, there were more poor ratings than good ratings but more recently almost all cars are rated good. Consequently, they added a second type of front-end collision: the small overlap test. In this test only 25 percent of a vehicle’s front is hit. The crash is meant to simulate clipping another vehicle, telephone pole or similar object that could miss centered, structural reinforcement entirely and seriously compromise cabin safety. This testing was introduced in 2012 because they found that the safety features built into the front of cars faced challenges when only a small portion of the front end absorbed the entire crash. Small overlap testing illustrates the catastrophic damage the sides of the vehicle’s front could suffer, causing severe leg and foot injuries to the driver and front seat passenger.

Vehicle side testing is done by parking the vehicle in the middle of the crash hall and sending a 3,300 lb barrier along a runway into the vehicle at 31 mph and shaped to approximate the front end of a truck or SUV. Roof testing is done with a hydraulically operated roof crusher pressing down on the vehicle and advancing at about an eighth of an inch a second. The crusher applies as much force as is necessary to crush the vehicle’s roof corner 5 inches. The crush is meant to simulate a roll-over collision.

Several factors determine these ratings such as the worth of crumple zones, the construction of the car’s safety cage or the presence or absence of side airbags. Most ratings on modern cars are good or acceptable across the board with more good than acceptable.

The VRC has a room full of crash dummies that participate in the crashes. They are complex mannequins made of metal, plastic and latex skin that range in size from a baby to a full grown adult. Their metal and plastic skeletons are built to resemble human bone structure, specifically the head and spine. This is important because it accurately shows what happens to the human body during a crash and goes a long way in helping to develop safety features. Their skin is expensive, durable latex that mimics the toughness and feel of human skin. Each dummy is packed with sensors that record what happens in the crash in terms of head trauma, how far each body part moves and how much deformation the chest endures or suffers. Dummies can generally participate in up to five crashes before their sensors need to be recalibrated.

A central piece of the VRC is the Crash Hall where much of the testing and crashes occur. The 22,000 square foot structure consists of two long runways with hydraulic catapult tracks powered by compressed nitrogen which are used to propel the cars to the desired speed. These runways lead into a cavernous white garage with four overhead lights that when combined produce 750,000 watts of light. The lights are so powerful and produce so much heat that they are only turned on just prior to a crash test to accommodate cameras taking “before” and “after” shots. A large black catwalk provides an observation post for anyone attending the crash and once the crash is completed viewers may walk down the steps of the catwalk to observe the crashed vehicle.

On the day we visited the VRC, we witnessed a moderate overlap crash of a compact vehicle. The process starts with the garage doors of the runway cranking open to reveal the testing vehicle in the distance. When the car was released, it became a white flash as it shot down the runway, under the catwalk and hit the barrier in the center of the room with a deafening crash. It was over in an instant and the front left side of the car that was pristine just five minutes prior was now a wreck of twisted metal. The front left side of the vehicle was completely crushed, the hood bent like an aluminum peak. The front left wheel was broken and deformed and its tire was destroyed. However, the right side of the front of the vehicle held most of its shape. The passenger and driver compartment seemed to be mostly intact. The back of the car was still whole; the taillights blinking. It seems likely that even with such a hard impact, this car’s occupants would likely have lived. (We won’t know for sure until the IIHS analyzes all the data and publishes the results which should happen sometime this summer).

According to IIHS, many automobile accidents are caused by driver inattentiveness. Drivers have a great deal to pay attention to while driving and a lapse of even a few seconds can lead to an accident. With the introduction of driverless vehicles, human distractions could become less of an issue while driving. Considering ninety-five percent of accidents are caused by driver error, collisions could largely disappear when that human element is removed. It’s unlikely that auto accidents will be completely eradicated but driverless technology can eliminate the vast majority of them. A driverless world will be a safer world.