One of the most important recognition that a vehicle sold in the US automobile market could obtain is the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s “five-star” safety rating. This is because the rating provided by the agency serves as one of the main criteria that buyers are considering when buying a new vehicle most especially for those who have higher regards for vehicle safety.
Just recently, the Chevrolet Sonic was able to obtain the NHTSA’s five-star safety rating and the model was subsequently included on the safest vehicle list. Due to this, General Motors is quite optimistic that the impressive safety features of the Sonic would encourage more buyers to purchase the model instead of buying some of its closest competitors. General Motors also considers this recognition as one of their significant accomplishments since this only shows that the efforts that the company have exerted in upgrading the safety capabilities of the Sonic turned out well.
Before the agency has given the Sonic with the five-star safety rating, they have subjected the vehicle to a series of crash test simulations particularly the side impact, side pole impact, and the frontal impact test. On the side and front impact tests, the Sonic obtained an individual rating of five-star since the vehicle’s structure obviously absorbed the force generated during the impact. The force of the impact might have caused serious injuries to the car occupants but the protective body design used by General Motors on the Sonic was quite successful in distributing the energy produced by the collision on specific parts of the vehicle that were designed absorb such.
In addition to this, the launching of the front, side, and side curtain airbags used on the Chevrolet Sonic were also excellent. These airbags were able to launch a fraction of a second after the sensors have detected a strong impact. Due to this, the data obtained from the dummies used on the test revealed that the possibility of the occurrence serious injuries on the car occupants is low. Thus, the Chevrolet Sonic was given the five-star average rating and this makes the model as the 10th vehicle from General Motors to earn the mark since the agency implemented a new set of crash testing system.
