Car & SUV Bumper Height Increasing Crash Repair Costs

[jeffrey]

The difference in the height of bumpers between cars and sport/utility vehicles is responsible for much higher repair bills, an insurance group study said.

This low-speed crash test between a sedan and an SUV shows damage that can come from uneven bumper height, an insurance group says.

The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety said even low-speed collisions of 10 mph, common in city driving, are seeing increasing repair costs because of the difference in bumper height between the two common vehicle types.

Car bumpers are required by a federal standard to match up reasonably well, said the institute's report. But it said no such requirements apply to SUVs and that some of those popular vehicles don't even have bumpers.

The institute ran low-speed crash tests between cars and trucks from the same manufacturer, such as the Ford Taurus, its midsize sedan, and Explorer, its mid-size SUV. It found 40 percent of those crashes produced damages of $5,000 or greater for the two vehicles... [read more at money.cnn.com]