While safety belts restrain back-seat passengers, they're susceptible to head and neck injuries, and in many of the SUVs, the belts are relatively low tech and simply tighten up in a crash.
Some automakers already have put more sophisticated belts in their back seats, something that can be done without a big model update, Harkey said. “The industry has always been good about responding to tests that we have introduced,” he said. “We expect they will do so in this case, and we expect they will be able to do so quickly.”
When the IIHS introduced the moderate overlap front crash test in 1995, most vehicles were rated poor or marginal. Automakers responded with stronger structures and air bags to make front-seat riders safer, and all 15 small SUV models used to get good ratings.