Whiplash report faults city cars

City cars are the least effective in preventing whiplash injuries in low-speed rear-end shunts. That’s the stark warning from Thatcham, the insurance industry’s research centre, as it published its new head restraint ratings.

It says drivers are being short-changed on safety, with the front seats of 11 small cars failing miserably to impress testers. Not one was rated as Good, which is described as ‘offering good protection for most sizes of occupant’. And only two were Acceptable, while the vast majority were Marginal. The Fiat Panda and Ford Ka were graded as Poor, which means they ‘offer little protection from whiplash’.

Thatcham’s crash research manager, Matthew Avery, said: “City cars are not equipped to protect their occupants’ necks when they have to absorb the crash energy from larger, heavier vehicles. Combined with poor seat design, this makes whiplash far more likely.”

He said good seat design shouldn’t be linked to the cost of the car, and while 75 per cent of all seats tested achieved a Good or Acceptable rating, more needed to be done in the city car sector. This category is growing in size as more motorists choose to drive ‘greener’, cheaper-to-run models.

Meanwhile, Thatcham has given its seal of approval to premium manufacturers Audi, Saab and Volvo for achieving a Good rating on every vehicle in their ranges.

Whiplash injuries cost the insurance industry millions of pounds annually, according to the Association of British Insurers. There were 432,000 claims alone in the last financial year, with the average amount paid out to motorists coming in at £3,500 – a whopping £1.5billion claim bill in total.

Thatcham has published complete results of its whiplash tests online. Log on to the website www.thatcham.org to find out how well your car’s front seats performed.