The Fusion is a disappointment because it's a brand new design.

The Fusion is a disappointment because it's a brand new design. Ford has done a good job with some other recent models, but the Fusion is at the back of the pack among midsize sedans for overall safety performance.

The frontal offset crash tests aren't providing consumers with much useful information anymore.

The heads of both dummies were protected from being hit by any hard structures, including the intruding test barrier. Side airbags, especially those designed to protect the head, are key in reducing risks to people in side impacts. The Institute's test represents a crash in which the striking vehicle has a tall front end like a pickup or SUV, so head protection is critical.

In the frontal test, the driver's side of the vehicle needs to absorb the energy of the crash and keep the occupant compartment intact, ... The Freestyle's performance is what we like to see. A driver in a real-world crash of this severity would be likely to sustain only minor injuries. The Freestyle is a good performer and a 'best pick' in the frontal test.

If you're not belted in the crash, all of that crash protection built into your car just can't help you.

In each of the top-performing minivans, the curtain airbags did a good job of keeping the dummies' heads from being struck by the intruding barrier. This is important because head injuries are factors in many serious side impact crashes, especially when the striking vehicle is a pickup or SUV with a tall front end.

The institute's side-impact test mimics a real-world crash in which a pickup or SUV runs a red light or stop sign and strikes a vehicle in the side. The A6's double best-pick performance, especially, is the kind we hope to see every time we test a vehicle.

It's disappointing that so many minivan seats are rated poor for rear impact protection,

Ford has been doing a good job with some of its recent seat designs such as those in the Freestyle SUV and Five Hundred sedan. But the new Ranger head restraint is more than three inches below the top of the head of an average-size man. This means it won't begin to provide adequate protection for many taller people in rear-end crashes. It's puzzling why Ford decided that buyers of the new Ranger should get less protection against whiplash than people in some of its other vehicles.