The tiny environmentally friendly Smart car has earned high points in safety tests for front and side on collisions, but failed to offer adequate protection from whiplash.

The little two seater car is favoured by many city dwellers, particularly those with concerns about the environment.

They will be pleased to hear that the car scored some of the highest ratings by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety for front and side on collisions despite being a very small car.

However, its whiplash protection was simply not up to standard and even if it improved whiplash protection the instate say that it could never be considered one of the safest cars on the road due to its small size.

This is one of the reasons that despite scoring highly in some areas, the car missed out on being named in the top safest cars on the road.

The car is the smallest car that the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety have ever tested.

“All things being equal in safety, bigger and heavier is always better,” said institute president Adrian Lund in an statement. “But among the smallest cars, the engineers at Smart did their homework and designed a high level of safety into a very small package.”

A spokesman for Smart added “The IIHS frontal crash test is conducted at a higher speed than required by federal safety standards, and it's an offset test that replicates most real-world crashes. The smart's sophisticated safety management system performed as designed.”