I still find it funny that people worry so much about this.....
Most of the current cars we all currently own would fail this test (unless you have a 2013 car, perhaps).
Yet we still drive.
Do you really worry about this while you drive?
Oh I agree. I also think Honda is using it as a marketing tactic as well. "Look, we passed it where the competition is failing."
These safety tests all test passive safety equipment. Really the best safety is in paying as much attention as possible and avoiding collisions as far as possible. But sometimes, it is unavoidable, where these safer vehicles could prevent injury or save one's life. Take for instance when my car was T-boned. There was heavy traffic in the west going direction, to the point where it was a parking lot. I was traveling east. The other person traveling south had a stop sign. Since the west bound traffic was so heavy, they avoided blocking intersections. This person then saw that the west bound traffic wasn't moving and proceeded to cross after stopping. Problem was, she couldn't see that there was a few cars (myself included) traveling east. And given the traffic, I couldn't see her crossing until it was too late. I barely saw it out of the corner of my eye and at that point I braced for impact. Hit on the driver's side, hard. Spun around almost 270 degrees. Luckily, no one was hurt or injured.
However, regarding the small overlap test, I would like to see some statistics:
1. How many collisions were of this type of nature?
2. Out of these types of collisions, how many resulted in injury / death?
3. Out of all injuries / deaths from collisions, how many were a result of small overlap?
It makes me wonder if they are chasing a very small percentage...
I bet my current car would do poorly in all these crash tests... A rusted body certainly doesn't help.