IIHS Top Safety Pick award

News from IIHS and HLDI
IIHS-HLDI: Toyota Prius

"The 2010 Honda Insight, 2010 Kia Soul, and 2010 Toyota Prius are the Institute's newest Top Safety Pick award winners. To qualify for Top Safety Pick, a vehicle must earn the highest rating of good in the Institute's front, side, and rear tests and be equipped with electronic stability control. Criteria to win are tough because the award is intended to drive continued safety improvements such as top crash test ratings and the rapid addition of electronic stability control, which is standard on the Prius and Soul, and optional on the Insight. "Recognizing vehicles at the head of the class for safety helps consumers distinguish the best overall choices without having to sort through multiple test results," says Institute president Adrian Lund."

Thanks for the links! Anyone aware of any video yet, or is that a different safety organization that releases those?

Good to know...it was kinda weird buying a car and not knowing the safety rating...

That is a relief. Last time I bought a car before the crash tests (02 Camry), the car ended up with 2 stars side impact. I figured with Side bags, that would not happen here.

This is VERY comforting, and agree with others that purchased the vehicle assuming Toyota continued their safety engineering excellence.

I'm still amazed that autos can absorb the energy of a serious crash - especially the frontal offset and side impact. Especially in relatively smaller footprint autos as the Prius.

Wonder why the Prius test results did not include pictures as the Insight's did? Would have been interesting.

I'm old enough to remember feeling safe in our old tank-like cars. The ones that barely crumpled, no airbags or even seatbelts at the time, protrusions on the metal instrument panel, spearing steering columns, floaty suspensions, bad braking systems, poor tires, etc etc. So many people lost their lives in these clunkers.
Auto safety technology has comes leaps&bounds. And the Prius is packed full. Yay.

IIHS-HLDI: Honda Insight
IIHS-HLDI: Kia Soul

Link to the 2010 Insight and Soul results.

I am told the Prius is being tested by the NHTSA this week, with results usually released 2-3 weeks later if there is nothing unusual.

Kudos to Toyota for engineering it right.

The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety rates cars for the Insurance industry (who fully owns them) based on how much damage is inflicted in their testing so the companies know how much to charge for premiums. The "safety" part is a cover. That said...

Since the Prius did well, it should be safer AND it should be lower to insure. Good for us!

Darn, I just HATE to encourge the IIHS...

Collision damage is one part of it. They have a bumper test that highlights that aspect.

The frontal and side impact tests are specifically designed to test occupant safety and reduce losses from injury claims. The results of these tests are based on dummy measures and intrustion, rather than repair costs. The offset test is used in other countries as well and has been correlated to real world risk of serious injury. The rear test is not a crash test. It is a sled test that simulates the risk of whiplash injuries. Also important, but a lot more subjective as it only applies to certain seat types, positions and assumes certain adjustments as well.

It's actually about reducing cost to the insurance company, but my bitterness aside, it still does give great info to us as consumers about the safety of a vehicle. I'm just being "anti-corporation" based on their real motives.

Very true. Fortunately, in the case of occupant injury and death losses, the issue happens to be the same whether you measure the cost in pain and suffering or dollars;-)

Back on Aug 4th, NHTSA (NCAP) reply my email and said:

"The crash test ratings should be available and posted on the website by middle August.

Thank you for your continued interest in our program.
NCAP"

On IIHS Prius test result webpage, it stated both frontal offset test and side impart test were conducted by Toyota. May be that the reason IIHS don't have there own photos. Both Honda Insight & Kia Soul photos indicate the tests were done by IIHS themself.

Then to me, I'd look at the Prius test results with a little skepticism.

Yeah not too surprising lol. My information came from Toyota, the person at NHTSA hasn't replied yet. Still, always subject to delays of course.

Interesting, I didn't realize that happened, I'll see if I can find out anything about it.

Yes, I had always assumed that the IIHS tests were fully independent.

I am told that this has been standard for a few years with the frontal crash tests and recently extended to the side impact testing. It is done in cases for redesigned versions of a vehicle that already received a "Good" rating. The automaker provides data and film on the test and the IIHS reviews it and assigns a rating and does spot verification, similar to what the NHTSA does.

Some details are here-

http://www.iihs.org/externaldata/srdata/docs/sr4103.pdf

For reference, one Toyota model has been audited with a second test. It performed the same as the Toyota testing overall, with a few minor noted differences-

IIHS-HLDI: Toyota Tundra

And just to put a point of emphasis on this disucssion....ignore the NHTSA tests..

The Fed's testing is at least 30 yrs out of date in every respect. On their own site they had a discussion last year which essentially said..'We have found that our testing doesn't predict much of anything. Occupants in a 5-star-rated vehicle may be hurt just as easily as in a 3-star-rated vehicle.'

As a result they are redesigning their tests. At best the NHTSA tests are Pass/Fail
4 & 5 Stars = Pass
3 Stars is marginal
1 & 2 Stars = Fail

Two years ago the IIHS stated that it 'had declared victory' in regards to frontal crash impacts tests since every vehicle had acquired the necessary engineering to make the occupants safe. As a result it was delegating the testing to the automakers unless the vehicles is a brand new model.

The IIHS will review the data from the other makers when the model is a redesign or a renewal.

This applies to Front and Side impact tests. Rear testing is still done by the IIHS in every case I believe.