NHTSA Raises Questions About Smart Safety

The tiny Smart ForTwo already passed European safety standards, and recently the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration also cleared it for the U.S. Side-impact scores were high — five out of five stars — but NHTSA raised concerns over the driver’s door opening during impact.

NHTSA usually gives high ratings because its testing system isn’t as strenuous as the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety’s, which Cars.com prefers. The Smart received four stars for front crashes on the driver’s side and only three stars for the front passenger. Its rollover rating was also just three stars, a rating usually reserved for large SUVs. (Three stars is the rollover score the 2008 Ford Explorer got.) 

In comparison, the small Chevy Aveo and Toyota Yaris get higher front and rollover scores, but lower side-impact ratings. And, of course, no added warning about the doors flying open.

NHTSA Smart crash test page with video (Safecar.gov)
More Smart News (KickingTires)

Comments

I like the EuroNCAP test scoring system. Like NHTSA, they use a star system, but with an offset test, and it seems to be more subjective, in that they can "flag" (cross out) a star if something bad happens that didn't necessarily result in the dummy getting a worse injury. Had this happened when they tested the Smart, they probably would have flagged the fifth star.

IMO, the EuroNCAP offset tests are more detailed than the IIHS offset tests, and identical vehicles tend to get worse scores in the EuroNCAP tests, as compared to the IIHS tests. You can access their website at:

http://www.euroncap.com/

I've seen two articles today that suggest NHTSA is calling the smart unsafe. The door opened in their test, yes, but it's happened to quite a few cars over the years without articles being written about them. Unless I missed one, the most recent was the 2008 Dodge Avenger.

While smart should have designed the door better, both the prevent people from calling its car unsafe and on general principle, articles like this that lack proper context serve only to provide support to the people who think that small cars will kill them.

segfault,
the problem is even European models like Audi or BMW aren't always completely identical to their euro cousins. And I wonder if their methods include the "hit be an SUV" method like the IIHS has.

IFCAR,
That's exactly why I call out the comparisons to the Aveo and Yaris!

Dave T.,

This piece was certainly better than its counterpart at The Car Connection because of that comparison. However, neither made it clear that it's not particularly unheard of for the doors to open in NHTSA's testing, and neither (to my knowledge) has written about it happening to any car but the smart. The headline "NHTSA raises questions about Smart safety" is also a touch alarmist for the door opening, which NHTSA notes as a concern primarily as an ejection risk. And how likely is ejection with a safety belt, door or no door?

Doors opening during crashes are very dangerous and I think the number of unseatbelted folks is still pretty high. I'd have to look it up. Most folks say "They deserve it" or whatever but still...

I agree that it's not as bad as the head impact from the side getting a 2 star rating but its not good. I think the frontal crash scores are pretty low and the rollover rate pretty bad. Both are probably more important than the safety latch.

The headline I thought was pretty to the point. The NHTSA website says "Safety Concern" with a big ! next to it. I could have said "concerns" instead of questions I guess.

Dave, Thank you for this posting and follow-up.