Auto manufacturers might soon be compelled to lower the placement of the front bumpers in their Sport Utility Vehicles (SUVs)to align with that of smaller cars. This is as a result of a low-speed crashes test conducted by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS)between the different SUV brands and smaller cars. The institute reported that only the 2008 Ford Explorer was found to be more resistant to damage and less likely to cause damage to other vehicles in low-speed crashes than other midsize sport utility vehicles, because of low level of the bumper which was compatible with smaller cars.

The institute disclosed that it would use the result of the test in its petition to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration for the standardisation of bumper height for all passenger vehicles.

According to Adrian Lund, president of the institute, in a front-to-rear collision tests, the other SUVs overrode the rear bumpers of stationary Hyundai Sonatas causing damage ranging from $3,891 to $4,737, and each SUV sustained more than $1,000 damage. He said the Explorer sustained less than $1,000 damage, and it inflicted only about one-third as much damage on the midsize sedan.

"One big difference is that the Explorer's bumpers line up pretty well with those on cars, so when this SUV hits a car or a car hits it, the bumpers on both vehicles engage instead of over- and under-riding each other. When cars collide with other cars, their bumpers usually line up pretty well, but in SUV-to-car crashes, the bumpers often don't match up at all. The result can be thousands of dollars of unnecessary damage in low-speed crashes," he explained.

He declared that the Explorer outperformed several other midsize SUVs in 10 mile-per-hour crash tests with the back of a typical midsize car.

Based on the test, he said that there was no evidence that the relatively effective bumpers on the Ford Explorer compromise its off-road performance or its utility at loading ramps. "The Explorer shows that you can still have the utility of an SUV without making bumpers so high that they don't line up with cars," he stated.

He noted that the tests were consistent with real-world crash data; and that the Explorer had lower-than-average losses under the same insurance coverage during the same years compared to the competitive models.

Priding over the success of the Ford Explorer at the tests, Darryl Hazel, president, Ford Customer Service Division, said the Ford Explorer has been the benchmark SUV for family capability, safety and value for two decades. "Insurance companies are more likely to give Explorer customers discounts because of this established track record.

Ford was the first to market with crash structures on SUVs that are more compatible with passenger cars. When the Explorer was redesigned for the 2002 model year, the front bumper was dropped nearly two inches, to better align with the crash structures of passenger cars. The 2008 Explorer retains that design, which helps to reduce damage to cars in common slow-speed incidents and allows lower vehicles' energy-absorbing bumpers to do their work. The Explorer is the only midsize SUV to receive the government's highest frontal crash test rating for six consecutive years.

Ford has more IIHS Top Safety Picks than any other brand, and more government 5-star safety-rated vehicles than any other automaker in history. Part of this safety success is that our larger family and work vehicles are more compatible with smaller vehicles," he said.