Or so a recent report from Autoblog seems to suggest.
Whether the truck had a one-star or five-star crash test rating, it fared nearly identical in terms of fatality rates for some pretty nasty crashes. That's not to say that trucks and SUVs are necessarily safer than cars, though; it just means that most of the 4 x 4s on the road are equally safe when it comes to whether a collision will be a fatal one. Does this mean that crash-test ratings are completely meaningless?
No. In fact, when you look at passenger cars (coupes, sedans, wagons, etc.), the differences can be pretty substantial. The death rate rises a solid 18% when you go from a car with a five star NHTSA rating to one with just one star. If we look at the IIHS ratings, "Poor" cars had a 43% higher death rate than cars that were rated as "Good." The trouble with all of this, however, is that "an amazing 95% of all new vehicles receive five star ratings from the NHTSA, which has pretty much rendered those tests useless anyway." More stringent tests are clearly needed to separate the best from the "just good."
