When it was recently tested in Europe along with several other models, the redesigned Toyota Corolla came out as one of the safer cars of the batch. It stood up to the usual battery of tests done by Euro NCAP, faring very well for both adult and child protection.

Now, the US version of the car has been tested too, and while it is eligible for the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety’s ‘Top Safety Pick’ award, it doesn’t get the ‘+’ because of not having done so good in the new small overlap test.

As you can see in the video posted after the jump, the worst-case scenario takes place as the car hits the obstacle designed to obstruct 25 percent of its front end: the driver’s head is violently swayed left and made to miss the airbag, being somehow wedged between the deployed airbag and the door cards.

Manufacturers nowadays should be prepared for this most challenging of crash tests so that they can engineer the body shell accordingly. Some have already found a way to make their cars safer in the small overlap situation. The solution is to have the car slide off the obstacle, sheering off much of the front left side, but dissipating as much energy away from the passenger compartment as possible, exerting less force on the driver’s head, which is no longer thrown to the left in such a gruesome manner…

By Andrei Nedelea

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