I just flipped by Dateline:NBC, where they are smashing cars into barriers and rating the cars on how expensive the repair bills are. It seems that cars have gotten so safe today that the tabloid magazine news shows have to make up tests for cars to fail.

That's about how meaningful those tests are. You can always generate failure by making up arbitrarily wierd and useless criteria.

Disclaimer: My dad is a testing engineer for one of the Big Three car companies, so I have some familiarity with the other side of the story. ;-)