It will be interesting to see how the 8th-generation Civic does given that the new model's safety features was designed using the aid of Honda's recently-opened safety test facility here in the USA and the fact the new model will sport side-curtain airbags. Don't forget that Honda wants very high ratings for the European New Car Assessment Programme (EuroNCAP) safety tests, so expect the 2006 Civic to probably get overall "Good" ratings from the IIHS, whose crash test methodology is very similar to how they do the EuroNCAP tests.