Crash tests show rear-seat passengers in small cars at risk

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An “accident” in a car’s back seat usually means you’ll be buying diapers and onesies in nine months’ time, but new data from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) reveals there can be more dire risks associated with that space — particularly in small cars.

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The institute tested a quintet of compact vehicles and found all of them to be lacking in protection for rear-seat riders. Frighteningly, it says all of them permitted the seated crash-test dummy – sized to emulate a typical 12-year-old child – to “submarine” under the seat belt, which means the lap portion of the safety device rode up the dummy’s torso and increased the risk of internal injuries.

None of the five small cars tested – the Honda Civic, Toyota Corolla, Kia Forte, Nissan Sentra, and Subaru Crosstrek – earned the group’s highest award of ‘Good’ in this test. Only the Honda and Toyota were rated ‘Acceptable,’ with the other three putting on a ‘Poor’ performance.

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The latter grade was awarded after testers found measurements taken from the dummy showed a moderate or high risk of head, neck, or chest injuries. Them’s important parts of the body, after all.

The IIHS is quick to point out that the back seat has not become less safe, but that the front seat has become safer in terms of injury risk thanks to improved airbags and advanced seat belts that are rarely available in aft quarters. Of course, the back seat continues to be the safest place for young children, since they can be injured by a rapidly inflating airbag if in the front.

This performance isn’t unique to small cars, with the IIHS publishing similar data about small crossovers and three-row SUVs in recent months. “These results highlight one of the key reasons that we updated our moderate-overlap front crash test,” said IIHS President David Harkey.

Some automakers may grouse that the IIHS is continuing to move the goalposts, though it is the safety group’s job to challenge the industry to build a better mousetrap. In recent years, testers at the IIHS have developed more stringent side-impact tests; toughened the notorious small- and moderate-overlap tests; and required carmakers to no longer fill washer fluid bottles with Thousand Island dressing. Okay, we may have made that last one up.