[RahulNagaraj]

Just last month, IIHS stated that rear-seat passengers have a 46% higher risk of injury than those sitting in the front seats. The reason for this was that while most of the cars concentrate on the safety of the front occupants, only a handful extend the same level of safety to the rear passengers.

Now, according to reports, IIHS has turned its attention towards improving rear-seat safety through a moderate overlap crash test. The test will see the addition of an adult-size dummy in the rear seat of cars to find out how they fare.



Taking the Honda Civic and Toyota Corolla sedans (both secured matching scores across all tests) as examples, IIHS found that rear-seat passengers experience "submarining". This is when the lap belt moves up onto the abdomen and increases the risk of internal injuries.

The testing agency believes that automakers can take the data from their tests and work on improving the safety of rear-seat occupants. The improvement process can start with the inclusion of better seat belt parts, crash tensioners and force limiters.

Source: CarScoops

Link to Team-BHP news

[DicKy]

Originally Posted by RahulNagaraj

The reason for this was that while most of the cars concentrate on the safety of the front occupants, only a handful extend the same level of safety to the rear passengers.

Now, according to reports, IIHS has turned its attention towards improving rear-seat safety through a moderate overlap crash test. The test will see the addition of an adult-size dummy in the rear seat of cars to find out how

Good move.

Most manufcaturers don't give much thought to the rear passengers safety, starting from the fact that most cars have rear seatbelts that are unusable for people of average height. It goes close too the neck and people wearing clothes without collars will find it irritating that the seatbelt will be rubbing against their neck, not to say the seatbelt should be across our shoulder and not near the neck.

[1LR-GUE]

The IIHS should additionally study and consider the following for the safety of rear passengers -
1. Impact of rear entertainment screens in facial injuries.
2. Shape and size of front passenger seats in truncal injuries.
3. Low seating position (sedan) vs high seating position (SUV) safety during a crash.
4. 3rd row passenger safety in roll over crashes.
5. Impact of panaromic sunroof on passenger safety during roll-over crashes on sand and other abrasive surfaces.

[GeeTee TSI]

Very valid observation on submarining.

The trend to have higher and higher window sills even in hatchbacks mean that the rear seatbelt harness point is uncomfortably high even for passengers of above average height. Seatbelt height adjusters should be mandatory for rear seats since the seat per se can rarely be adjusted.

This without even considering the majority of cars on our roads without 3 point rear seatbelts!

[AAD]

If my memory serves me right, Car Brochures in India in the late 1990's highlighted Anti Submarining Front Seats. I am surprised that this feature has not been made available to the rear passengers till now.