IIHS Focuses On Untested Passenger Side With Crash Tests

The auto industry’s toughest crash test program could get tougher in a hurry. The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety has begun to subject certain vehicle models to its rigorous small-overlap crash test on the passenger side. IIHS began the additional testing after discovering that some updated models had received structural reinforcements to improve crashworthiness on the driver side, where the test is normally conducted, but not on the passenger side. IIHS spokesman Russ Rader described the added testing as a "research project" intended to find out how widespread the practice is and to ensure that automakers are engineering crashworthiness improvements to both sides of a vehicle.