Volvo S60 Excels in New IIHS Crash Test
To reward 2013 models with superior crash protection, the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) is awarding the new Top Safety Pick+ accolade to vehicles earning good or acceptable ratings in the new IIHS small overlap test as well as top marks in other IIHS evaluations. The Volvo S60 is one of two midsize luxury vehicles to currently earn the Top Safety Pick+ award.
In IIHS's Small Overlap Frontal Crash Test, 25 percent of a car's front end on the driver side strikes a 5-foot-tall rigid barrier at 40 mph. A 50th percentile male Hybrid III dummy is belted in the driver seat. The test is designed to replicate what happens when the front corner of a car collides with another vehicle or an object like a tree or utility pole. Outside of some automakers' proving grounds, such a test isn't currently conducted anywhere else in the United States or Europe.
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IIHS states: "Nearly every new car performs well in other frontal crash tests conducted by the Institute and the federal government, but we still see more than 10,000 deaths in frontal crashes each year," Institute President Adrian Lund says. "Small overlap crashes are a major source of these fatalities. This new test program is based on years of analyzing real-world frontal crashes and then replicating them in our crash test facility to determine how people are being seriously injured and how cars can be designed to protect them better. We think this is the next step in improving frontal crash protection." |
The S60 achieved an overall rating of Good and was one of only two vehicles tested to achieve this rating. Some excerpts from IIHS's Press Release include: