Surprisingly Unsafe: The 2007-2012 Toyota Yaris

The 2007-2012 Toyota Yaris earned respectable crash test ratings for its time; it’s not a death trap by any means (as long as you get the side airbags), but a closer look at said crash test ratings shows that it had some definite shortcomings compared to some of its competitors; namely, a weak driver front airbag. 

Let’s start by looking at the moderate overlap crash test. In this test, which simulates two vehicles of the same weight hitting each other, the driver dummy’s head hit the steering wheel through the airbag hard enough to bend the wheel’s rim. While the vehicle still scored an overall rating of Good, the HIC of 612 with 92 head G’s shows that minor to moderate head injuries would be likely – a factor only made worse by the Yaris’s size. 

And indeed, when the 2009 Yaris was crash tested in a 40-mph moderate overlap crash test with a midsize sedan (a 2009 Toyota Camry) as the opposing vehicle, the dummy would have suffered potentially fatal head injuries. The HIC-15 was a whopping 1,483. A HIC-15 of 840 or higher gives a vehicle an automatic POOR rating; this HIC was over 1.75 times that threshold. Severe neck injuries would have also been likely, along with two broken legs. 

In comparison, a 2009 Honda Fit crashed in the same manner against its midsize brother, the 2009 Honda Accord, had a HIC-15 of 542; although both legs would have still likely been broken, there were no life-threatening injuries. Some credit has to go to Honda’s ACE body structure, which helps smaller vehicles better manage impacts with larger ones. 

But unlike the Yaris, the Fit’s seat belt and airbag system was able to prevent the driver dummy from contacting the steering wheel in the standard moderate overlap crash test which simulates two vehicles of the same size hitting head on. While the Fit’s dummy did hit the steering wheel through the airbag in the much more severe Fit vs. Accord test, the head impact was slightly less severe than in the test of the Yaris that simulated hitting another minicar.