New versions of the Honda Civic compact car and Toyota Lexus LS 430 luxury sedan earned the highest marks in crash tests done by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. The offset tests estimate how well occupants would survive in a vehicle if the driver's side of the front end slammed into a barrier at 40 miles per hour. The tests, similar to ones done in Europe for crashworthiness, have become widely accepted among automakers; none of the seven new models tested earned a poor rating for crash protection. The IIHS said the 2001 Civic earned good ratings on all measures of crash performance, with an acceptable rating for bumper performance. The only other compact car tested, Ford's 2001 Focus, earned good or acceptable scores in all crash measures and a marginal rating for bumper performance. The 2001 Dodge Stratus and Chrysler Sebring midsize sedans from DaimlerChrysler AG earned marginal ratings for right leg/foot injury and bumper performance, with good or acceptable scores otherwise. The 2001 models of the Chrysler LHS and 300M large sedans earned similar scores, with a marginal rating for the left leg/foot injury and bumpers. The Lexus LS 430 and two Mercedes-Benz sedans earned good ratings for all crash protection areas. The Mercedes E-Class and C-Class were given poor ratings for bumper performance, while the Lexus earned a marginal rating. The E-Class captured a "best pick" rating despite its bumper performance, due to its strength in other areas of the crash test. The institute, an insurance industry group that studies and lobbies automakers on safety issues, noted that all new models improved on the performance of their predecessors. The biggest improvement was in the Chrysler midsize sedans; the models they replace earned an overall poor rating for crashworthiness. The institute also said that during the first crash test of the Lexus, the car's air bags and seat belt tension system went off slightly late, allowing a crash dummy's head to touch the steering wheel through the air bag. The car would have still earned an acceptable rating for head injury, but Toyota made changes to the vehicle's wiring and asked for another test, according to IIHS. Car companies are making safer vehicles without being forced by government regulations, according to Brian O'Neill, president of IIHS, who sake automakers are motivated by the marketing value of good crash-test scores from IIHS and by the federal National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). Automakers "know many car buyers want the best occupant crash protection they can get," says O'Neill said, and if safe design is incorporated in the development stage, "I certainly don't think there's any trade-off... It doesn't have to cost any more."