Back-Seat Passenger Safety Inadequate In Midsize SUVs, New Crash Tests Show

Many midsize SUVs, often popular choices for families who frequently transport children in the back row, don’t offer adequate rear seat crash protection in frontal crashes.

In a new crash test evaluation, only four of 13 midsize SUVs – the Ford Explorer, Ford Mustang Mach-E, Subaru Ascent and Tesla Model Y — offered solid protection for passengers seated in the rear and received the top rating of good.

Six others, the Honda Pilot, Hyundai Palisade, Jeep Grand Cherokee, Jeep Wrangler 4-door, Mazda CX-9 and Nissan Murano, earned the lowest rating of poor. Three more, the Chevrolet Traverse, Toyota Highlander and Volkswagen Atlas, were rated marginal.

Those are the results from an updated moderate overlap front crash test assessment announced on Tuesday by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, a nonprofit financed by the insurance industry.

“All these vehicles provide excellent protection for the driver,” David Harkey, president of the Insurance Institute, said in a statement, “but only a handful extend that level of safety to the back seat.”

The top rating in the institute’s assessments is good, followed by acceptable, marginal and poor. (No vehicles were rated acceptable in this recent test.). Each of the SUVs tested received an overall rating and in sub categories, including safety and structure of occupant compartment, protections for preventing injuries to specific areas of the body of drivers and rear passengers – head, neck, chest, abdomen and thigh – and effectiveness of restraints and airbags.

The four top-rated vehicles provide solid protection for rear passengers by most metrics, the safety group said. “The seat belt remained properly positioned on the pelvis, the side curtain airbag performed correctly, and there was no excessive force on the dummy’s chest.”

The updated front crash test was developed and implemented in evaluations to encourage improvements to safety systems in the back seats, as modern crash tests have resulted in safer outcomes for front seat occupants in frontal crashes, but rear seat safety lags, the safety group said.

The new test incorporates a dummy in the second row positioned behind the driver dummy and focuses on addressing the injuries most frequently seen in rear-seat occupants.

Institute researchers noted that the risk of a fatal injury is 46 % higher for belted occupants in the rear seat than in the front in vehicles from model year 2007 onward. The back seat hasn’t gotten less safe, they added, but improved technologies, like advanced seat belt systems and better seat designs that have been implemented in the front seat haven’t yet made it to the back seat.

“Zeroing in on weaknesses in rear seat safety is an opportunity to make big gains in a short time, since solutions that are already proven to work in the front can successfully be adapted for the rear,” Marcy Edwards, senior research engineer at the Insurance Institute and who led the development of the updated test, said in a statement. “The four good ratings in this round of testing show that some automakers are already doing it.”

For more details about the ratings, including specifics for each of the 13 models evaluated, click here.