ROANOKE TIMES 

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, February 26, 1991                   TAG: 9102260421
SECTION: BUSINESS                    PAGE: A-3   EDITION: EVENING 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

CARS TAKE LUMPS FROM LITTLE BUMPS

Some 1991-model cars sustained more than $3,000 damage in bumper crash tests at 5 mph, according to an insurance industry trade group.

The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, based in Virginia, renewed its demand for a reinstitution of the federal requirement that car bumpers be able to withstand a 5-mph crash with no damage. The standard was lowered to 2.5 mph in 1982 at the urging of car makers.

The institute said a Hyundai Sonata was damaged the most - $3,298 - of 22 four-door sedans crash-tested by an outside contractor. Five other domestic and imported models also sustained more than $3,000 in damage. Least damaged was a Honda Accord that would have cost $618 to repair.

The testing, done each year on a group of cars of similar size and type, involves crashing each vehicle headlong directly into a barrier, headlong at an angle into a barrier, backward directly into a barrier and backward into a pole. - Newsday 


 by CNB