The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety released new crash tests for a group of 18 midsize family cars Thursday.
The vehicles are the first moderately priced cars to be subjected to the Institute's more stringent frontal crash test - a small overlap test that simulates what happens when just the front corner of a car hits another vehicle or a roadside object like a tree or pole.
Two cars, the Honda Accord and Suzuki Kizashi earn good ratings, another 11 models are rated acceptable. Two cars from Toyota, the Camry and the Prius v are rated poor. The Prius v sustained major structural deformation in the test.
The Institute implemented the new tests after research showed that about a quarter of serious injuries and deaths in frontal crashes occur in these small overlap impacts.
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