The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety declared that the 2008 Smart fortwo earned the highest scores in its crash tests. It attained the highest ranking in front-end and side-impact testing and second-highest ranking in a test of the vehicle’s passenger protection in rear collisions and against whiplash.
“How safe is it?”, asked by consumers. Adrian Lund, president of IIHS, said that all things that are equal, either big or heavy, is better. However, among smallest cars, Smart engineers did their homework to design a high level of safety in just a small package.
Smart fortwo weighs 1,800 pounds which comes with electric stability control. It has a steel safety cage and four airbags. Two are placed in front and the other two are on the sides to protect the head and the abdomen. Tough Smart has no front-end crush zone which is a key element in decreasing injury in serious frontal crashes it still achieved its crash ratings. Smart fortwo’s restraint system compensates the lack of front-end crush space. The said system works more in absorbing energy as occupants trample a crash.
The frontal-crash test of IIHS replicates a 40 mph crash with a similar vehicle while 31 mph with the side crash using an SUV. Unfortunately, the driver’s door was unfastened but Lund said that the injury extent on the dummy was not severe and the opening of the door did not affect the movement of the dummy. Such tests are done to find out how well vehicles of such size and weight compare. However, since there is no other minute as Smart Fortwo, front-end tests can’t be compared. Further, Lund said that small cars that earned favorable ranking don’t necessarily mean that they are safer than large ones. Lund points out that minute cars like Smart Fortwo can be most safe in urban areas where high speed crashes often happen.
Smart Fortwo got five-star top score in side impact testing done by the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration even though the driver’s door unfastened and opened during the said test. However, the rating was not affected and was just given suggestions like windows should have sticker that notes safety concern.
Daimler AG, German automaker, had received more than 30,000 reservations of Smart Fortwo, which only has a base price of $12,000 for base fortwo and $17,000 for fully- loaded Smart convertible. 33 mpg is what Smart Fortwo acquires in the city and 41 mpg on the highway.
