Survival Space Post-Crash

Survival Space Post-Crash

Small Overlap Front Crash Test

Small Overlap Front Crash Test

Front and Side Curtain Airbags

Front and Side Curtain Airbags

Risk of Injury Low in Drivers Space

Risk of Injury Low in Drivers Space

Photos and video courtesy IIHS

In the past, Subaru has talked up its “symmetrical” all-wheel drive system for the added control it provides in slippery conditions and the advantage it provides over two-wheel drive vehicles. It’s an excellent system, but with AWD now commonplace in vehicles across price, size and body style classes, Subaru has lost some of the marketing traction it once enjoyed by making AWD standard in most of its lineup.

[Subaru] is the only automaker to have all of its models recognized as Top Safety Picks by the U.S. Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS).The Japanese automaker can rest easy, however, as it has another more significant honour on which to hang its corporate hat: it is the only automaker to have all of its models recognized as Top Safety Picks by the U.S. Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS). Even more significant is that while the IIHS has recognized Subarus as some of the safest vehicles on the road since 2010, its models maintained Top Safety Pick status even after the organization began conducting its more rigorous small-overlap frontal crash test in 2012.

We’ll get into that test in more detail in a separate article about the IIHS’ test procedures, which we got to see in person when Subaru took us on a tour of the IIHS facility last month. Simply put, the small-overlap test puts a lot of stress on a vehicle’s structure: of 13 small SUVs put through the new test in 2014, 11 were rated ‘marginal’ or ‘poor’ in overall occupant protection. The Forester (which was redesigned for 2014) earned the only ‘good’ rating, while the Mitsubishi Outlander’s performance was deemed ‘acceptable.’

The IIHS’s other crash tests include a moderate overall frontal impact test that’s less challenging, structurally, for a car to pass; a side-impact test; a roof-strength regime to gauge rollover protection; and head restraint and seat tests. It’s not all about the metal that makes up the car’s exterior, either: the vehicle’s seatbelts and airbags are also judged based on how well they hold an occupant in place and prevent head and body contact with hard surfaces inside the car.

In addition to the full-line Top Safety Pick honour, five of Subaru’s models can boast Top Safety Pick-Plus status, which adds collision avoidance to the mix. In this case, Subaru’s camera-based EyeSight system was a deciding factor, its auto-brake function working flawlessly to prevent a collision (with the rear of a vehicle in front) in tests conducted at 20 and 40 km/h (12 and 25 mph), and helping those five models earn the IIHS’ ‘superior’ rating for collision avoidance systems.

Obviously, avoiding an accident is the best-case scenario, but Subaru’s vehicles were earning good marks from the IIHS before it introduced the EyeSight system, and that can be credited to what Subaru calls its ring-shaped reinforcement frame. This frame focuses structural strength around the passenger compartment, where it counts: In frontal and rear-end impacts, crash forces are absorbed by structural elements in the engine and cargo compartments, and the people in the car are protected in frontal and side impacts by a cage of high-strength steel.

Subaru’s PR folks talked up its vehicles’ safety with the expected promotional materials, but it was during my own research after our trip to IIHS headquarters that I found this article in a first responders’ trade magazine from November 2005 discussing what firefighters were seeing when responding to side-impact crashes involving Subaru vehicles. In it, the author, a firefighter and vehicle extrication expert, writes about how that reinforcement frame was designed so well even a decade ago that the car’s B-pillar was nearly impervious to first responder extrication tools. That speaks well for the protective abilities of a piece of metal that some automakers see as little more than a place on which to hang the car’s doors.

Only five of seven Subaru models earn Top Safety Pick-Plus status, because EyeSight is not offered in the BRZ sports coupe, nor in the WRX/WRX STI sport sedan range. Those cars do share their structural chops with the rest of the carmaker’s line, however, allowing them to ace the IIHS’ crashworthiness tests for basic Top Safety Pick honours.

In theory, all cars should be designed to protect the people riding inside, but real-world results show that’s not always the case. While vehicle crash testing like that done by the IIHS is the true driving force behind improving vehicle crashworthiness, companies like Subaru are doing their own part to raise the bar, too.