NHTSA: Smart ForTwos could do better in a crash
Even though the Smart ForTwo is a great looking and popular car, there's just not a lot of places for crash impact energy to go in a vehicle this small. This is part of the reason that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, when it announced crash test results for the ForTwo on Thursday, issued some lackluster ratings and a "safety concern" footnote to report a door coming unlatched during a side crash. Overall, the 2008 ForTwo scored four stars for the driver in a front impact, three for a passenger in the same situation, five and three for resisting rolling over. These results are neither great nor amazingly bad, writes Harry Stoffer in Automotive News, and it bears repeating that the front impact scores only compare similar-sized vehicles hitting each other. Not sure how the ForTwo would handle a Escalade at 100mph.
[Source: Harry Stoffer / Automotive News]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Wildgoosechase73 8:20PM (4/05/2008)
And people complained about those pesky fires when Pinto's were rear-ended, I'd hate to see what a UPS truck would do to a Smart car.
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mike 8:39PM (4/05/2008)
A UPS truck? A UPS truck would smash an Escalade as well. Any accident with any vehicle at 70+, kiss your soul goodbye.
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mike 8:42PM (4/05/2008)
What's the difference with this or a Mazda Miata or a Honda S2000? This is more comfortable and easier to live with.
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Rob O. 10:22PM (4/05/2008)
There may be room for improvement (no pun intended) but then again, the ForTwo isn't designed to do 100 m.p.h. And for that matter, since that's clearly well outside the legal (or rational) speed limits, what would an Escalade be doing going 100 m.p.h. - other than getting about 8 m.p.g.?
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Joseph 1:24AM (4/06/2008)
Unfortunately, it didn't do as well as I hoped, but oh well.
Sebastian, the front crash tests do simulate a crash with a similar sized vehicled, but it is worthy to mention that in side crash tests it simulates an SUV hitting you. It's impressive that the Fortwo gets 5 stars in side crash with an SUV (although the door opening isn't so great)
I'm a bit disappointed in the results though because the Honda Insight (which is the same weight, but is a good deal larger in terms of dimensions) gets 4 stars for both front passengers and four starts for 4 stars for the side crash, without any "safety concerns" like opening doors. The Honda Insight is eight years old and performed better than the new Smart. The Smart is smaller dimension wise, but I'd expect better engineering from a Benz.
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Throwback 7:48AM (4/06/2008)
People who have to have a Smart wont be turned off by these scores. I wouldn't be as I expected the car to not score as well as a Fit for example. Hey Smart, when you fix the transmission give me a call.
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rgseidl 9:48AM (4/06/2008)
@ Rob O. -
two vehicles traveling in opposite directions at a perfectly legal 50mph each on a rural highway have a relative velocity of 100mph. High speed crashes will always involve extreme decelerations of the internal organs - there's only so much room inside a car. You could build the car such that the passenger cell will remain largely intact, but the people inside will still die.
Here are videos of a smart crashing into an E- and an S-Class Mercedes, both vehicles that are roughly twice as heavy. According to the engineer interviewed, that's equivalent to increasing the relative speed of two vehicles of similar weight to over 70kph (40mph), well above official crash test conditions. It's not clear to me if these tests were carried out with the original design or the new one.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7670710284266276781&q=mercedes+smart+crash&total=52&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=3
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3213423318028641027&q=mercedes+smart+crash&total=52&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=1
Unsurprisingly, the lighter vehicle experiences much greater rebound, wildly spinning and tipping over in one of the tests. Rebounding is an elastic phenomenon, i.e. it proves that the Tridion safety cage remains largely intact. The absence of paint on the dummies in the smart actually suggests they might suffer fewer injuries in the initial contact. However, tipping or rolling over can exacerbate any that do occur (e.g. concussion), create some new ones (e.g. cervical syndrome, head-to-head impact) and, complicate extraction from the vehicle by emergency services.
Bottom line: the smart is a car designed for urban and suburban use. Driving at high speed on roads with a median divider (e.g. freeways) isn't any more dangerous, but it might be a good idea to avoid rural highways - especially at night, if the weather is bad or, if there's an increased risk of deer or drunk drivers on the road.
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Tim 10:35AM (4/06/2008)
"Not sure how the ForTwo would handle an Escalade at 100mph." duh!
I'm know how a motorcycle would handle a ForTwo or an Escalade would handle a tractor-trailer at 100mph and I’ve seen video of a Tractor-Trailer being hit by a freight train and it’s not be pretty.
It’s all about mass differential and structure design & materials and we are making progress in all of these areas
As fuel prices increase, the average car mass will decrease and so will the mass differential between automobiles. Increasing fuel prices will also force much of the long-haul trucking to be replaced with vastly more efficient freight trains. Local delivery trucks are another matter entirely.
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Bill 6:06PM (4/06/2008)
Forget the transmission issues, redesign the engine to run on regular instead of premium, or bring us the diesel.
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Dave S 9:51AM (4/07/2008)
I'm sure our esteemed author meant 100mph closing speed, as in both vehicles doing 50.
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virgil 10:44AM (4/07/2008)
@mike
Miata and S2k did surprisingly well in crash tests, apart from rollover, which is very unlikely because the low center of gravity makes these cars feel planted to the ground when cornering.
However, the major safety feature of a miata is SPEED - i.e. that "oh crap" moment when you're about to get T-boned at a junction, being able to floor-it to escape danger is a key feature (and one which has saved my bacon on a number of occasions!) I'm not sure the Smart-4-2 offers the same level of rapid-escape-mode.
Of course, the bummer with both cars (miata and S2K), is that they guzzle premium gas at a rate close to 20 MPG, which is pretty bad for something weighing little over a ton.
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mike 4:59PM (4/07/2008)
I'm worried about you virgil, if you've had many of these "oh crap" moments, you suck as a driver. And pretty soon your number is going to come up. Secondly, if it's a Ford Explorer that clobbers you, your low center of gravity isn't going to stop that miata from rolling over.
Why don't you consider that it might be your driving style that's getting you in trouble. Try this advice: if you regularly speed at say 25+ mph over the speed limit, drop down to 20+ for the next 3 months, then drop down to 15+, etc.
We need EVERY reader of AutoBlogGreen, even You.
Consider this phrase: "Track Time".
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