With an increasing number of SUVs and pickup trucks sharing the road with cars, the insurance industry is developing new tests to rate how automobiles hold up when broadsided by larger vehicles, according to an Associated Press report by Nedra Pickler. The tests being developed by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) use a crash barrier a foot higher than the government's side impact crash tests, which were designed to represent a car slamming into the side of another vehicle. "The vehicle mix is very different than it was 30 years ago," said Russ Rader, spokesman for the institute. "We have many more SUVs and pickups hitting cars in side impacts, and the government doesn't test for that kind of crash." The institute's tests are so tough that no cars are passing them. The institute has not released the initial test results publicly, but recently showed them to automakers in hopes they will improve vehicle designs. Rader said the institute hopes to begin rating vehicles with a side impact test by the end of the year.
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