http://www.iihs.org/ratings/head_res...age.html#acura

 

 

Looks like all of the usual competitors of the RL did about the same or worse in this particular test. Volvo's seats continue to shine and one would think they would be the model that the other manufacturers would follow.

 

The two Saabs did the best in the "neck forces". I think the results are related not only to the seat design but also the car structure design.

 

...it's sad when the $15,000 Honda Civic does far better than a $50,000 Acura RL.....money does not necessarily buy better safety....how weird

....even the Lexus LS430 did not do well and the Mercedes E Class with all it's HYPE about safety just gets an "Acceptable" .....WOW!!

IMO, a rear crash is one that I fear the most, because you can do nothing in YOUR CONTROL to avoid it. You could be sitting stopped at a traffic light and someone could plough into you at 60mph

 

They are scary. T-bones are scary as hell also. That is what happened with my TL - I was going through the intersection when the other kid (18) ran the intersection at 50ish and hit my pass. side. If it was the drivers side I wouldn't be here today. Not much you can really do about things you don't see - but especially the rear - if you see a car plowing down the road behind you and there is a car infront of you, brace yourself - nothing you can do - besides even if there wasnt a car infront of you, you probably won't be quick enough to be able to pull off to the side or something.

 

You are right, as far as the rear crash test is concerned.

One can't directly compare a car from one class to another in a different class, but in this case we can. The Civic was the pick for small cars, but it's neck shear force and neck tension force were 52 and 1149 respectively as compared to that of the RL's 114 and 1031 respectively. The Civic was marginally worst in neck tension force, but it did overall better compared to the RL.

This was not the 06 Civic, so I wonder how the new Civic would perform in these tests.

 

.....what I was talking about was the 2006 model, and not the '05 Civic.

The 2003-05 was rated 299 & 1149 for neck shear force and neck tension force respectively. Besides, it "failed", got a "HIGH" rating for FORCE, and got an overall "POOR" dynamic rating

The 2006 Civic was rated 52 and 677 for the above 2 categories, and it got a "pass", got a "LOW" rating for FORCE, and was awarded an overall "GOOD" dynamic rating

....so basically, the '06 Civic's figures in all categories are SUBSTANTIALLY superior to the RL's due to the fact that the Civic has seats equipped with ACTIVE HEAD RESTRAINTS, whereas the RL doesn't. DOES THAT MAKE ANY SENSE for the same manufacturer to offer a superior safety feature on it's 15K offering and not to offer it on it's FLAGHIP.....that's simply insane!!!

 

vicpai,

You are right. My mistake. I thought only the 2003-05 Civic was in the study. We would expect that the 05 RL had the active head restaint, since other manufacturers had offered this before the 05 RL came out. If Acura for some reason missed it in the 05, what then was the reason for the 06 not to have it?

 

^ Because Acura virtually changes NOTHING on the 2nd year car - even for safety. The only think they do is fix the problems from the first year. I can see it being on the 07' RLs

 

From what I understand, a front seat is attached to a sled in the test. The car's rear structure and the rear seats were not involved in the test. So I am somewhat relieved that "only" the front seats are implicated.

 

Having active head restraints does not appear to be the deciding factor in rear collision safety as it apparently depends on the design of the seats and retsraints. The RL does not have them but received an overall "Marginal" rating while the Infiniti group all have the active retraints but all models but the Q45 received an overall "Poor" rating. Apparently Volvo designed the restraints in the Five Hundred/Montero which assisted that vehicle to gain the all-around "Gold" rating.

If one were shopping the luxury sport sedan vehicles and rear collision safety was an important factor in the purchase decision, none of the vehicles seem very suitable under this one criteria. If I remember right, only the Mercedes E and Audi 6 received an adequate rating, the BMW 5 series and RL gained a marginal rating and others were poor. Of course many of them do very well on the other crash tests but not this one.

 

Good observation. Similarly I don't pay as much attention to the geometric numbers, even thought there seems to be a good correlation between "Pass/Fail" in the geometry and dynamic ratings.

It is so nice that in this forum we could point out things that may not be obvious to others and correct each others mistakes and misconceptions. It is a place for me to learn.