NHTSA safety test

[mike700]

Due to Smart's poor performance I am very glad I cancelled my reservation and would never again consider purchasing this poorly performing car !

[stuberman]

Thanks this is good info.

There are plenty of things to consider such as the likelihood of an injury during a rollover (SUVs have been catching a lot of heat about that lately even though excluded from ratings).
Another thing that comes to mind is context. How do you drive your car (city streets where low speed collisions are the norm), how does agility play in to accident avoidance, etc...

I am also interested to see how others like Consumer Reports rates them independently.

[SmartAzz]

Originally Posted by mike700

Due to Smart's poor performance I am very glad I cancelled my reservation and would never again consider purchasing this poorly performing car !

[cmjars]

mike700

[Duckhunter]

You know I think the car did remarkably well for a very very small car. Would like to know if the doors may have been a fluke.

[SmartDigger]

the yaris is no safer

[SmartDigger]

http://www.internetautoguide.com/cra...ris/index.html

tells me the yaris is no safer.

[Dave777]

Originally Posted by SmartDigger

http://www.internetautoguide.com/cra...ris/index.html

tells me the yaris is no safer.

A valid comparison. The Yaris is better in the front crash, but worse in the side impact. The Yaris has better rollover resistance.

The only problem with comparisons is that there's virtually nothing in this size category to compare with. I may be wrong, but I believe the vast majority of purchasers of the smart car recognize right up front that the car is tiny and this presents some obvious challenges and compromises in the safety area.

In contrast to that, I'd say that a large segment of the SUV buying population actually believes that the sheer size is protective, and don't understand the physics or statistics of rollover accidents.

What I'm saying is this: I don't think there's a single smart owner here who seriously believes they're safer in this than in a large Mercedes. I don't think anyone's trying to make lemonade out of the ratings, just saying it did pretty well for it's size. Could be better probably, but pretty good for a micro car.

[spdickey]

Originally Posted by Duckhunter

You know I think the car did remarkably well for a very very small car. Would like to know if the doors may have been a fluke.

smart USA has called the door incident "an anomaly." The bigger thing is the three star passenger safety result. I wonder what was going on over on the right hand side?

The test we really should look for is the Insurance Institute test coming soon.

[smartSparky]

Also not considered, as far as I can tell, is the excellent stability control software and hardware built into every smart. With the side impact safety construction and the ESC it would take a lot of effort to roll this thing. Somehow I doubt that was factored in. Think back to the Consumer Reports flaming of the early Suzuki Samaris. I seriously doubt you'll be seeing that kind of video on the smart. IMHO