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Do they have dummies seated in the back of cars during crash testing? I was wondering what injuries would be caused by someone's head being in contact with the roof of a car during a crash, as many modern saloons have very low rooflines at the back. I have sat in the rear in many current cars and found that my head was in contact with the roof, to the extent that I couldn't lean back on the headrests.
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If you read the EuroNCAP website at www.euroncap.com you'll see that their testing doesn't consider rear-seat passengers at all, except for those in child seats.
If they did, I guess that those low rooflines would be phased out fairly rapidly ... but in the meantime it sounds like it'd be wiser to lose a few inches in height* before accepting a lift in one of these 2+2 saloons
* No, I've no idea how ...
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A very heavy hat perhaps? :-)
teabelly
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It is absolutely incredible to think that rear passenger safety is not considered serious enough to be the subject of safety testing and ratings.
Just imagine the damage that could be done to a person's neck if his/her head was wedged against the roof, in the event of a severe impact.
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I should have made it clear in my opening comment, that I am referring to mainstream saloons, not to coupes, or other cars with occasional rear seating accommodation.
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I have no particular knowledge of this subject, and am open to correction from those who do,
but it seems to me that there are a huge number of variables involved in car accidents. A car that is involved in a road accident can be hit from several different angles and the force can vary hugely. There is no way that NCAP testing can test more than a handful of types of accidents. NCAP tests give the public some idea of how solid the construction of a vehicle is - but that is about all. To expect much more is not really realistic. Personally, I'd rather have good visibility and ABS than a good NCAP score.
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I should have made it clear in my opening comment, that I am referring to mainstream saloons, not to coupes, or other cars with occasional rear seating accommodation.
That was how I read it -- I referred to "2+2 saloons" not to mean coupés etc, but rather the cars which are marketed as mainstream saloons but have their rear seating sabotaged because the roof slopes away to satisfy the style victims.
I'm sure that tyro is right, and NCAP couldn't measure everything ... but it seems to me that by measuring nothing in the back seat, manufacturers are being let off the hook too easily. When front-seat passengers are protected by hundreds of airbags, it's crazy that those in the back risk their heads being scrunched by the roof.
That makes me wonder: would rear-seat passengers be better off in a crash if they wwere not wearing seatbelts? They'd stand a higher chance of headbutting the front-seat occupants, but because they'd be less likely to remain upright when the car overturned, they'd surely be les likely to have their head crushed into their necks.
(My gran overturned her car in the 70s, and cos she wasn't wearing a seatbelt survived with only light bruising when the roof was squashed. Very rare situation for front-seat occupants nowadays, but might be more relevant to those in the back)
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I quite agree that it is not possible to cover every aspect of accident risk in testing, but straightforward situations can be dealt with, e.g front and rear impact. These will cause whiplash injuries and if the head is jammed against the roof, the leverage on the neck will be immense.
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