Press Release

GM Response to Highway Safety Institute's Crash Tests

11/21/96

General Motors Response to Insurance Institute for Highway Safety
(IIHS) Report on Offset Crash Tests of Minivans


WARREN, Mich., Nov. 19 -- Following is General Motors
response to Insurance Institute For Highway Safety (IIHS)
Report on Offset Crash Tests of Minivans.  It may be attributed to
Bill O'Neill, Director of Product Publicity for General Motors North
American Operations:

The GM Minivans are safe vehicles.  During the design phase, GM ran 72
full-scale crash tests, replicating a wide variety of potential,
real-world circumstances a driver may face.  GM ran tests in the
front, side and rear, utilizing fixed barriers, moving barriers, poles
and car-to-car tests.  The GM Minivans meet or exceed applicable
U.S. and international safety standards.

The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety is wrong if it's suggesting
that the safety and occupant protection of any vehicle can be
objectively evaluated on the basis of this one unusual, high-speed
crash demonstration.  IIHS criticized eight of the nine tested
minivans as "weren't good" on the basis of just this one test.  Any
automobile manufacturer would be severely criticized if it marketed
the safety of its vehicle on the basis of only one test, particularly
this one.

Crash data maintained by the U.S. Government shows that the type of
crash the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety conducted represents
in crash severity less than 4 one-hundredths of one percent (0.04% or
0.0004) of the accidents occurring in this country.  The IIHS
demonstration is equivalent to a crash of one vehicle into another
similar parked vehicle at 74 to 76 mph, an extremely severe and
unlikely impact.  Although the IIHS has run these tests on various
cars over recent years, the fact is that the insurance companies
themselves don't appear to raise or lower the premiums they charge
because of these tests.

Some form of frontal offset testing can be appropriate for comparative
safety evaluation, provided that the test is uniform for all vehicles,
the results are repeatable, and there is demonstrable benefit to the
public.  Indeed, GM ran three offset barrier tests using a
well-accepted European test procedure on the European version of the
new GM Minivan, and it performed well.

There is some disagreement about what is good or poor performance in
offset crash tests.  The Europeans have one standard which the GM
Minivan meets while IIHS has another that most vehicles do not do well
on.

The IIHS even failed to point out that the one vehicle it endorsed
suffered floor pan weld separation in the occupant compartment and
intrusion of the front tire into the passenger area.  Our inspection
of all the tested vehicles showed that two other minivans suffered a
similar fate, but not the GM Minivan.

We can learn from countries around the world about new and better ways
to collect meaningful engineering data used in the design of our
vehicles.  For example, we can all learn something from the example
set by Canada, which just recently decided to protect its motoring
public by requiring airbags to be depowered.

We believe that the engineering and governmental communities should
continue to evaluate the best type of offset barrier tests to achieve
a better understanding of the alternatives, and try to reach agreement
on a preferred test procedure that provides the greatest benefit to
motor vehicle safety.