But while the Institute ranks the car as a "top safety pick" based on its performance in front- and side-impact tests, it gave the 2012 Mercedes C-Class a "poor" grade in the new small-overlap test.

WSJ: New Safety Test Puts Car Buyers in a Quandary

Volvo's U.S. manager of product safety and compliance, Adam Kopstein, says his company's engineers began doing tests to simulate small-overlap crashes in the 1980s after analyzing data collected from car accidents in Sweden and other countries.

WSJ: New Safety Test Puts Car Buyers in a Quandary

He also thinks that the proposed deal would pass through antitrust regulation, given the airlines' small size as well as the fact that their routes do not overlap.

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