BMW Sedan - Side Impact Rating
By now you may have heard about the "worst performing" BMW 5 series sedan in side impact testing performed by IIHS. It should send shockwaves, we hope, through BMW. From the article:
The air bags in the BMW 5 Series protected the head, but separate air bags designed to protect the chest and abdomen performed poorly, the institute said.BMW's are expensive, high-performing automobiles and there is simply no excuse for them to offer their passengers sub-standard safety in deadly side impact collisions. The tests that the BMW failed were tests of what, at least in America, are becoming very common side-impact tragedies:
The tests were designed to show what would happen if a truck or sport utility vehicle hit the side of the sedan at 31 mph, the speed of a serious crash. Side-impact crashes are the most common type of fatal crash after a frontal crash, killing around 9,000 people in 2005, the institute said.But there is a silver-lining to this latest round of crash 'em up. The $25K sedan made by KIA ended up with the highest safety rating available from the IIHS. Putting it in the same league as the vaunted VOLVO S-80. Which of course should make you wonder, what's all that extra money doing for you in a BMW?
