How Safe Are Those Five Star Crash Ratings?

What exactly does the government “5 Star Crash Rating” mean? You won’t believe the answer!! If you’re in an accident, these ratings may not help you.

Almost every car company proudly displays their “5 Star Safety Crash Rating”, each manufacturer boasting their cars are safer than the others. But what does it all mean to you? How do they determine safety and how do they come up with a star program? Does a vehicle with a less than 5 star rating really mean it’s not safe to drive?

Let me begin to explain what they are all talking about. The ratings are determined by crash dummies, wired with sensors, placed in vehicles front and rear seats, and crashed into barriers to simulate an accident. But before we get into the particulars, let’s first understand the parameters.


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kpaxx - 7/12/2007 10:06:47 AM

+1 Boost

Hmmm I wonder which manufacturers actually take real world crashed cars and use this information in the safety design of their cars?

Neverfollow - 7/12/2007 11:58:54 AM

+1 Boost

Uh,

That would be the big three German brands. When they pluck one of these unlucky souls out of the Black Forest due to an unplanned exit from the Autobahn, the respective manufacturer will often aquire the vehicle for study purposes. What they find will often end up in some sort of production change to improve vehicle safety. It sounds bad, but high speed crashes and the infomation obtained by engineers from these extreme situations are a valuable resource to the German car industry. I don't know of any other brands that do this but I kind of doubt it.

moto - 7/13/2007 4:54:11 PM

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All US, Japanese, and European manufacturers that I am aware of use real crash data to help design new vehicles. The star rating is a good indicator, but obviously cannot possibly characterize all scenarios.

In the end, the safest vehicle is the one that doesn't collide with any other. That's one of the biggest underlying reasons why bigger, taller, heavier vehicles often cause more injuries to its occupants AND to occupants in other vehicles. It's a false sense of security. On public roads, drive courteously and leave realistic room between yourself and other vehicles -- bigger cars require longer stopping distances, even if you know you're the world's greatest driver.

02WRX - 7/12/2007 10:17:15 AM

+3 Boost

Awful article. Your odds of dying when crashing a 5-star car are not one in ten: your odds of suffering a severe head or neck injury are one in ten or LESS. Likewise, when crashing a one-star car, your odds of receiving the same injury are one in two or MORE. That is, you are AT LEAST five times as likely to be seriously injured in a one-star car crash than in a five star one. Yes these results are for relatively low-speed crashes, but do you really think the one-star car magically becomes the safer one as speeds increase?

Will_ - 7/12/2007 5:10:40 PM

0 Boost

Wha...?

M53R - 7/13/2007 2:02:13 PM

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This is not what the article was pointing out. It was pointing out that you should not feel a false sense of security just because your car got 5 stars. Every car is dangerous in high speeds, no doubt.

dgan50 - 7/13/2007 9:02:21 PM

+1 Boost

Thank you M53R for understanding the article and my point in writing these. We all need to stop blaming others and waiting for the government to take care of us and start assuming responsibilities for our own actions and mistakes while driving AND know what the consequences could be.