The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety announced the car crash results of its 2014 sub-compact segment. These small vehicles have been rated as the worst performing group of any evaluated so far.

Chevrolet Spark comes out top for 2014

Only theChevrolet Sparkachieved an acceptable rating in the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety’s (IIHS) small overlap front crash testout of 11 tested small cars.

The small overlap test replicates what happens when the front corner of a vehicle collides with another vehicle or an object such as a tree or utility pipe. In the test, 25% of a vehicle’s front end on the driver’s side strikes a rigid barrier at 64 km/h.

According to the report, the test is more difficult that the head on-on crashes conducted by the government or the longstanding IIHS moderate lap test because most of the vehicle’s front-end crush zone is bypassed. Which makes it hard for the vehicle to manage crash energy, and as a result causing the occupant compartment to collapse.

“Small, lightweight vehicles have an inherent safety disadvantage. That’s why it’s even more important to choose one with the best occupant protection,” IIHS senior vice president for vehicle research Joe Nolan said in a statement.

“Unfortunately, as a group, mini-cars aren’t performing as well as other vehicle categories in the small overlap crash.”

Even with the Top Safety Pick designation, the Spark still only managed to score an “acceptable” rating. It lost points in the small overlap crash test, an area that proved to be even more shattering for the rest of the segment.

2014 IIHS Small Car Crash Results

*click image to view in full

Honda Fit/Jazz, Fiat 500 perform poorly

“The two worst performers are the Honda Jazz/Fit and the Fiat 500,” said the IIHS in a statement. “In both cases, intruding structure seriously compromised the driver’s space, and the steering column was pushed back toward the driver.

The dummy’s head barely touched the Fit’s airbag before sliding off and hitting the instrument panel. The Fiat 500?s door tore off, increasingly the likelihood of passenger ejection.

Every sub-compact model tested returned a “marginal” or “poor rating in the structure category, which is the most fundamental element of occupant crash protection. If the structure is compromised during a crash, airbags can be knocked out of position.

All the vehicles except the Spark and the Mazda 2 also earned low ratings for restraints and kinematics. Seven of the 11 were downgraded for allowing too much occupant forward motion during the crash. In those cases, the seatbelt either failed to react soon enough or the dummy’s head missed or slid off the airbag. Side curtain airbag protection in eight of the tested vehicles proved to be insufficient during the small overlap test.

None of the cars were given the “Top Safety Pick Plus” rating because the IIHS now requires frontal crash prevention systems for its highest safety award – an increasingly common safety feature that can prevent or mitigate some kinds of frontal crashes.

IIHS was founded in 1959 by three major insurance associations representing 80 percent of the U.S. auto insurance market. It’s an independent and non-profit organisation which focuses on road safety.

What does this mean for you as a consumer? Check carefully when it comes to safety features and specification. Cars can be replaced, human beings not so much.

IIHS Minicar crash test video