While the whole world tends to move to small cars and abandon big vehicles like SUVs, pick-up trucks and minivans, Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) says that passengers in small autos are less protected than in big ones.

Minicars did well at the frontal offset barrier test, but IIHS decided to try car-to-car crash tests between the autos from the same manufacturers: 2009 Toyota Camry was going to collide with Yaris, while 2009 Honda Accord crashed with Fit and 2009 Mercedes-Benz C300 had an “accident” with Smart Fortwo. All small cars did poorly at the test.

The performance was done at the speed of 40 mph. The rating was based on the amount of intrusion into the occupant compartment, and injuries and movement of the driver dummy. IIHS president Adrian Lund commented the results of the tests with the words, “Though much safer than they were a few years ago, minicars as a group do a comparatively poor job of protecting people in crashes, simply because they’re smaller and lighter”.