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CNN Live Today

Automakers Make Grade for Safety

Aired March 20, 2002 - 13:23   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: There are some automakers getting their safety report cards today. The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety issued the results of its crash tests for some 2002 models. Kathleen Koch joins us now from the institute's vehicle research center. That's in Greene County, Virginia. Always interesting findings here. Kathleen, good afternoon. What are we learning?

KATHLEEN KOCH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Bill, what we are learning is that for only the second time since the Insurance Institute began testing vehicles, every single car and truck they tested got a passing grade.

Now, we're going to look, first of all, we don't have pictures of the test, but we have the vehicle here. And it's a minivan. It's a Kia Sedona, a minivan. And this one got an acceptable rating. Now, Adrian Lund, who is the chief operating officer for the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, is here to talk about it. This got an acceptable but not a good rating. Why?

ADRIAN LUND, INSURANCE INSTITUTE FOR HIGHWAY SAFETY: Well, what we see in the Kia Sedona is more intrusion than we want to. We see that the occupant department has been deformed. It's given up here and here. We are losing space for the occupants to survive. There's less room for the occupant restraints to work. We also see a little bit of intrusion here. So there's a little higher risk of injury to the feet. But, overall, this is still an acceptable performer.

KOCH: Now, the Dodge Ram pickup -- let's look at the videotape of the test crash of that. Now, this is a 40-mile-an-hour crash test, 40 miles per hour, into the deformable barrier. And even though this is a very violent looking crash, you see a lot of damage to this very large and very heavy pickup truck, but this is actually an improvement over how it's performed the last four years. Tell us about that.

LUND: Well, this is quite a large improvement. In the first time we tested this vehicle, there was a lot more occupant compartment intrusion. It was a risk of serious injury to an occupant in an offset crash.

Here we see that the structure has held up much better, although we still see intrusion down here. This is more than we would want. We only rate the intrusion a kind of an acceptable level. But overall, you can see that this part of the occupant compartment has been -- maintained its shape very well. So, there's room for the restraints to do their job, keep you from being injured.

KOCH: All right. Quickly, let's take a look at your very best pick, and that was a Subaru Impreza. When it was tested, again, in the same 40-mile-per-hour-crash against a deformable barrier, Performed very, very well. Let's take a look at the videotape. And when you look at the vehicle itself, even again though that crash is very violent, this car did quite well. And what made the difference in this case?

LUND: Well, this car did do very well. The Subaru -- you can see that there is hardly any damage to the occupant compartment. There's very little intrusion in the foot well. This is just what you want to see. There's plenty of room for the restraints to protect you from injury.

KOCH: Now, as these test results get better and better, are we finding then that Detroit is spending more and more on safety or are they just designing better cars?

LUND: They're just designing better cars. This costs a little bit to design cars this way, but not that much. They're just focusing on making sure that their cars will protect people in an offset crash.

KOCH: Adrian Lund, the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, thanks a lot.

And, Bill, just as an example of how it doesn't have to cost a lot to improve the safety factor, the Dodge Ram pickup went from the very worst rating of poor to the very best rating of good. And the sticker price only went up $1,000. Back to you.

HEMMER: We'll take that, good deal. Kathleen, thanks.

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