In September 2009, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) published a report that investigated the question “why, despite seat belt use, air bags, and the crashworthy structures of latemodel vehicles, occupant fatalities continue to occur in frontal crashes.” The report concluded that aside from a substantial proportion of these crashes that are just exceedingly severe, the primary cause was poor structural engagement between the vehicle and its collision partner:​ corner impacts, oblique crashes, impacts with narrow objects, and heavy vehicle underrides. By contrast, few if any of these the 122 fatal crashes examined in the report were full-frontal or offset-frontal impacts with good structural engagement, unless the crashes were of extreme severity or the occupants were exceptionally vulnerable. As a result of the NHTSA study, the agency stated its intent to further analyze small overlap and oblique frontal crashes in its Vehicle Safety Rulemaking & Research Priority Plan 2009-2011 published in November 2009 [NHTSA, 2009].

As part of the study the agency initiated a research program is to investigate crash test protocols that replicates real-world injury potentials in small overlap (SOI) and oblique frontal offset impacts (OI). The test program compared the results from vehicleto- vehicle (VtV) tests to tests conducted with a moving deformable barrier-to-vehicle (MDBtV) and pole using the same baseline vehicles. The first part of the analysis of the results compared the vehicle crash metrics (pulse, change in velocity, and interior intrusion) of the MDBtV/Pole test procedure to the VtV test procedure. The second part of the analysis compared injury assessment of the MDBtV/Pole test procedure to the VtV test procedure.