Honda Civic is first small car to ace tougher crash test
Honda's new Civic passed IIHS' tougher crash tests(Photo: IIHS)
The revised 2013 Honda Civic is the first compact car to earn a Top Safety Pick "Plus" designation from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety industry testers.
Two Civics -- both the two-door and four-door models -- and three other larger vehicles earned this top rating, it was announced today. The other top scorers were the redesigned 2014 Mazda6 mid-size mainstream sedan, the Lincoln MKX mid-size luxury sedan and the Volvo XC60 mid-size luxury SUV.
TSP+, as it is known, It means the cars were able to score a top "good" score on the new, tough frontal offset crash test, in addition to the regular tests. Of course, larger vehicles generally hold up better than smaller cars in crashes, which is why it's significant that the Honda Civic was able to ace the new, added test with a "good."
It's not easy. the frontal offset test that IIHS has added (and the government has not yet included) is a test in which a car is smashed into an object resembling a pole or partial head-on collision on the driver or passenger side. In order to be designated as a TSP+, the vehicle needs to first pass the traditional front, rear, side and rollover crash tests -- and then pass the new "small overlap test" of impact into just 20% of the car's front end.
A bunch of cars have flunked the test, but the latest test results show that engineers are figuring out how to modify new cars to make sure they'll pass.
Reached for comment, Clarence Ditlow of the Center for Auto Safety says such tests are critical to coaxing safety improvements out of automakers.
Honda Civic's win is significant because it reflect mid-cycle renovations to the popular vehicle. The redesign was undertaken after complaints about the quality of the car's interior and other touches, not its crash test results. But while they were at it, engineers built extra safety into the revised version of the car as well.