2k1Toaster said:
It doesn't make any sense to me. Most vehicles that were made and designed before this test was thought up don't pass at all. Yet they are all over the road and things are fine. It is a brutal test but there are a bunch of other possible accident scenarios that aren't tested for today that most vehicles will also fail.
Its not a brutal test, it is like all tests quite synthetic.
Different tests, TEST different aspects of the vehicle, the traditional US test, full frontal may not be representative of real world accidents, but it does test the interior cabin aspects of safety the most, its a hard stop that test the effectiveness of seat belts, steering wheels, console knobs etc, to me, its a very valid test for that reason.
Offset test are different again, they trade cabin effectiveness for various crushing of the front of the car, so a more survivable test, even though speed is faster.
To optimize for 1 test will reduce values vs the over tests, just like optimizing for one accident type will reduce values for other accident types. So car is needed to optimise for both tests.
In regards to the small overlap test, its cheap to strengthen/lengthen certain structural parts to optimize for that.
but then other parts may need to weakened so to maintain optimum performance in other tests.