Popular Minivans' Back-Seat Crash Tests Don't Go Well

None of the 4 popular brands tested managed to secure a 'good' or 'acceptable' safety rating
By Kate Seamons,  Newser Staff
Posted Sep 19, 2023 3:11 PM CDT

CBS News calls it "a red flag for anyone considering driving or purchasing one of the vehicles." The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) says the 2023 models of the popular Honda Odyssey, Toyota Sienna, Chrysler Pacifica and Kia Carnival all failed to notch an "acceptable" or "good" safety rating due to how back-seat passengers fared in tests of head-on collisions. While the front-seat passengers were protected, a test dummy the size of a 12-year-old didn't do as well in the back seat. IIHS VP Jessica Jermakian says with all four vehicles, the "rear occupant was at an increased risk of chest injury, either because of poor belt positioning or high belt forces."

"People in the rear seat are at increased risk of fatal injury compared with those in the front seat," Jermakian continued. "And it's not that the rear seat has gotten less safe over time. It's that the front seat has gotten so much safer by comparison." Jalopnik emphasizes that for children not old enough to ride in the front passenger seat, the back seat remains the safest choice. The Honda Odyssey had "a higher rate of head and neck injuries," said Jermakian, and received an overall rating that was the lowest possible: "poor." The other three models received the rating "marginal."

One more important point from CBS: "The minivans performed well in past crash tests, but the IIHS raised the standards for testing because it believed back-seat passengers were being overlooked." Cars.com elaborates, explaining IIHS redid its moderate overlap front crash test in 2022, with the new version added metrics related backseat passenger injury. To notch a solid score, IIHS said there adequate survival space must remain in the second-row compartment in the event of a crash, and measurements taken from the dummies shouldn't indicate an excessive risk of injuries. Some SUVs had trouble with the same metric in December. (More crash test dummies stories.)

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