Insurers' group likes the ForTwo, but warns about small cars

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By TOM INCANTALUPO/Newsday

The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety on Wednesday echoed the federal government’s findings that the tiny Smart ForTwo that went on sale this year does a good job of protecting its driver in crashes.

But the institute also renewed its warning that, no matter how well it’s designed, a lighter vehicle is always at a disadvantage in a crash with a heavier one.

And, notes the institute, virtually all other vehicles on public roads weigh more than the 1,800-pound ForTwo, which is more than 3 feet shorter and 700 pounds lighter than a Mini Cooper, previously the smallest car sold in the United States.

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This undated handout photo provided by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety shows a frontal offset crash test of a 2008 Smart ForTwo. (AP Photo/Insurance Institute for Highway Safety)

This undated handout photo provided by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety shows a frontal offset crash test of a 2008 Smart ForTwo. (AP Photo/Insurance Institute for Highway Safety)

The institute rated the ForTwo “good” in protecting an instrumented test dummy in a 40 mph frontal crash test but noted that the test simulates a crash into a wall or a vehicle of similar weight, not a head-on collision with a heavier vehicle.

The ForTwo, which is equipped with seat-mounted side-impact air bags, also did well in an institute test simulating a sport utility vehicle or pickup hitting the car in its driver’s side at 31 mph. And the car’s seat/head restraints earned the institute’s second-highest rating — “acceptable” — for protection against whiplash in rear impacts.

The institute, which represents insurance companies, does not conduct its frontal test with a second crash dummy in the passenger seat. The federal government did so and found that a real person would have a relatively high chance of serious injury.

Both the institute and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said the ForTwo’s driver’s door opened during their respective side impact tests, increasing the changes that a person, especially one not belted, would be ejected from the vehicle in a real crash.

The institute, which represents insurance companies, also expressed concern that rising gasoline prices would stampede buyers into unnecessarily small cars.

“While small cars are safer now than before, so are large cars,” institute president Adrian Lund said in a statement. So, he said, the driver fatality rate in minicars like the ForTwo is 50 percent higher than for large cars. “People often choose very light cars for fuel economy,” Lund said, “but you don’t have to buy the smallest, lightest car to get one that’s easy on fuel consumption.”

Produced in France by a unit of Daimler AG and sold for several years abroad, the ForTwo has been controversial since it began arriving in U.S. dealerships in January, both for its diminutive size and what some critics have deemed disappointing fuel economy for a three-cylinder car so light in weight.