No Minivans Make IIHS Safety List as Rear-Seat Safety Falls Short

No Top Safety Pick for Minivans

Considering that minivans are geared towards families, it's rather shocking to learn that the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety didn't include a single one on its Top Safety Pick roster. There were affordable compacts in the list, as well as SUVs of varying shapes and sizes, but family shuttles were noticeably absent. So, what gives?

Following the Institute's new, tougher testing guidelines for moderate overlap crashes, all the minivans it tested simply didn't cut the mustard in terms of rear-occupant protection. More shockingly, none of the models even earned an Acceptable grade for protecting rear passengers.

"It's Disappointing," Says IIHS

"It's disappointing that minivans continue to struggle to provide the best available protection for passengers in the back, considering that these are supposed to be family vehicles," said David Harkey, the current president of the IIHS.

The models tested were the Chrysler Pacifica, Honda Odyssey, Kia Carnival, and Toyota Sienna. The Pacifica, Carnival, and Sienna received a rating of Marginal, while the Odyssey scored Poor in the new moderate overlap test. It's the very reason none of these vans even came close to earning a Top Safety Pick award from the Institute.

High Injury Indexes

During the tests, it was observed that there were elevated head/neck and chest injury risks for rear-seat passengers. The dummies measured forces high enough to cause concern for the IIHS. For the Carnival, it only offered marginal protection to the head/neck and chest, while the Pacifica did not provide adequate protection to the chest, and the side airbags failed to deploy.

For the Odyssey, there were exceedingly high forces on the dummy's head and neck, hence the Poor score. While the dummies in the Sienna didn't actually record extreme forces, there was a high risk of 'submarining' wherein the seatbelt slides up into a passenger's abdomen, increasing the likelihood of injury. The structure of the vans isn't the problem; rather, excessive forces from the seatbelt tensioners, as well as poor positioning of the seatbelts, are.

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Improvements Coming Soon?

It's safe to say that the manufacturers of these minivans will be finding ways to improve the outcome soon. That said, it's not totally bad news, as all received a rating of Good in the small overlap crash test, while the Sienna and Odyssey fared well in side impact testing. But the point that IIHS is driving home is that these cars can't be safe in just one or two aspects; it has to be the whole package.

Either way, it's in everyone's best interest to address the root of the problem, and hopefully the changes have been applied since the release of the test results.

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