The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) has released new crash test results and the Subaru Forester comes out on top as the only small SUV to earn a rating of "good." The new small overlap front crash test is designed to replicate crashing into a pole or tree at 40 mph. Joe Nolan, the Institute's vice president, said of the newly redesigned Subaru Forester, "This is exactly how we hoped manufacturers would respond to improve protection for people in these kinds of serious frontal crashes."
The Subaru Forester was also one of only two cars that received a "good" rating for side protection and it is clear that Subaru is leading the pack in the growing small SUV class for safety. While most other vehicles are designed to do well in full-frontal crash tests that are mandated by the government and in the moderate overlap test IIHS uses, only Subaru was engineered to perform well in the new small overlap test. Many other manufacturers haven't made efforts to account for these types of crashes.
However, over a quarter of all crashes are of this type. In cars that aren't designed with safety features for these types of crashes, the crash hits the vehicle where there isn't any protective primary structures to protect the occupants, meaning the passenger compartment might collapse into itself and cause very serious injury or fatalities, according to IIHS.
Subaru focuses on preventing and minimizing the effects of these types of crashes. With assistive braking systems, Subaru hopes to avoid these crashes all together. But when they do occur, Subaru has designed the new Forester to help keep you safe.
