'Poor' crash safety rating for new RAV4

Toyota’s all-new RAV4 has been awarded a ‘poor’ safety rating for a new “small overlap” crash test in the US.

Introduced by North America’s Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) last year, the small overlap crash test is designed to simulate a collision in which the front quarter of a vehicle impacts an object like a tree, power pole or another car.

Designed as an extension of the institute’s moderate 40 per cent overlap test, the 25 per cent overlap test attempts to simulate how well vehicles cope with 40mph (65km/h) frontal collisions with a five-foot-tall barrier.

However, the new RAV4, which was released in Australia and has achieved a maximum five-star Euro NCAP rating, was among the worst performers of 13 other mid-size SUVs tested by the IIHS this year, scoring the institute’s lowest rating (poor) in the small overlap test.

According to the IIHS, the driver's space of the RAV4 was “seriously compromised by intruding structure, and the dummy's left foot was trapped by crushed and buckled sheet metal in the footwell”.

Furthermore, the dummy's head barely touched the frontal airbag before sliding off to the left side, while the steering column moved more than 175mm to the right.

That resulted in “little airbag cushioning for the chest”, said the IIHS, adding that the driver’s seatbelt allowed “excessive forward movement of the dummy's head and torso, contributing to the head hitting the instrument panel”.

That wasn’t enough to stop the new RAV4 scoring Top Safety Pick status from the IIHS, following ‘good’ ratings in the moderate overlap, side, rollover and rear crash tests.

Toyota responded with a statement saying the IIHS “periodically develops new, more severe or specialized tests that go beyond federal requirements. With the small overlap test, the institute has raised the bar again, and we are responding to the challenge. We are looking at a range of solutions to achieve greater crash performance in this area.”

The IIHS says one of the major problems with small overlap crashes, which account for 25 per cent of the 10,000 fatal frontal accidents that occur in the US each year, is that the wheel is the first to receive blunt force, while typical energy-absorbing structures in the centre half of a vehicle’s front-end are not employed.

Many manufacturers will have to make “significant changes” to improve occupant protection in these types of collisions, said IIHS President Adrian Lund.

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