Small Size, Big Risk

It is hardly a new thought that a small car will crumple more easily in a crash than a big auto, but just how much does the safety risk grow as cars shrink? To find out, the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, a research group financed by auto insurers, ran a series of head-on test crashes at 40 to 50 m.p.h. Each collision pitted a small car against a larger model produced by the same U.S. manufacturer: a Chevrolet Vega against an Impala, a Ford Pinto against a Galaxie, a Dodge Colt against a Plymouth Fury, an American Motors Gremlin against an Ambassador.

Films of those tests were shown at a Washington press conference last week by Institute President William Haddon Jr., former director of the National Highway Safety program. They might badly shake many buyers of small new cars, which now account for one-third of sales. In some crashes, the small car was smashed into a pile of twisted junk barely recognizable as an auto, while the bigger car sustained relatively moderate damage. In the Chevrolet crash, a dummy placed in the Impala only struck its head against the dashboard, but the dummy in the Vega was beheaded by a section of the hood that was hurled back through the windshield.

In Detroit, automakers do not dispute the test results but theorize that small-car buyers are aware of the safety risk. Haddon doubts that. For example, he cites a Transportation Department-sponsored study of accidents involving 420,000 cars in New York State in 1968 that few auto buyers know exists. That study found that 3.1% of the people involved in crashes of big cars weighing an average of 4,800 Ibs. were killed or seriously injured. But the rate of death or serious injury rose to 4% in intermediate cars averaging 3,700 Ibs., to 6.4% in domestic compact cars averaging 2,800 Ibs. and to 9.6% in foreign compacts averaging 1,900 Ibs.*Haddon predicts that insurance companies will carefully consider higher charges for policies on small cars and their riders, in order to reflect the greater safety hazard.

*Compact U.S. cars like the Vega, Pinto and Colt in Haddon's test crashes generally weigh from 2,015 Ibs. to 2,500 Ibs.

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