Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) released some interesting crash results in a report published in March this year. The report summarizes the damage and the costs involved for numerous vehicles when crash-tested at 3 mph (corner impact) and 6 mph (full impact) for bumper performance, in tests that were designed to simulate real-life vehicle-to-vehicle impact scenarios. Just to put things into perspective, the average human walks at about 3 miles per hour….so we are talking of really low speeds.
The results of the bumper tests are not very encouraging. Here is how IIHS president Adrian Lund summarizes them in the report:
The whole purpose of bumpers is to keep damage away from head-lights, hoods, and other parts that are expensive to repair, but this purpose was accomplished in only 2 of the 68 tests we conducted. In the rest, what we found is that bumpers aren’t up to the job.
When bumpers fail their functional requirements, safety issues and damage and repair cost issues will arise. Here are some post-crash repair costs for various vehicles that were tested.
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