IIHS on the Smart ForTwo: Officially Safe?

You can call the Smart ForTwo cute and cuddly, but can you call it safe? That’s the word many consumers have been waiting to hear based on the car’s petite size.

The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety crash tested the 1,800-pound Smart ForTwo, and it earned the agency’s highest rating, Good, in front and side impacts. Its seats and head restraints earned IIHS’ second-highest rating, Acceptable, for protection in rear impacts.   

But IIHS president Adrian Lund stopped short of saying the Smart is safe.

“Among the smallest cars, the Smart engineers did their homework and designed a high level of safety into a small package,” he said.

Even so, while small cars are safer than ever, Lund said, “the risk of death is higher in crashes of smaller, lighter models. All things being equal, bigger and heavier is better.”

In front crash tests, the ForTwo bounced off a barricade like a pinball and could have crossed into another lane of traffic to be struck again. Lund said that because there isn’t a lot of frontal crush space, the Smart is very stiff to prevent intrusion into the passenger compartment. Because of that, it will bounce off what it hits in an impact.

“There’s an added risk of bouncing off and striking something else,” he said. “If it runs into a larger and heavier Chevy Tahoe at 40 mph, the Smart is going to bounce off. But while bouncing is a risk, we don’t know where it might bounce. We do know the clearer and greater risk is its size and weight — you can put two Smarts in the space it takes to park one Town Car.”

Where Smart comes up short is in front-end crush space, which gives the driver more time and room to slow down in a frontal impact to prevent injury. Essentially, the safety belts and airbags have to work harder to protect occupants than they would if the car had a few more feet of crumple space in front of the occupants.

While a favorable crash rating was supposed to vindicate Smart for its size, Lund said that if you’re looking for a small, high-mileage car to counter high gas prices, “you don’t have to choose the smallest, lightest car.”

“The Toyota Prius gets better mileage (than Smart), earns good front and side crash ratings, and is bigger and weighs more, so we’d expect it would be more protective in serious crashes,” Lund said.

IIHS classifies the ForTwo as “micro” because it’s smaller than a conventional minicar. It’s 3 feet shorter and 700 pounds lighter than a Mini Cooper.