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The improvement of side impact protection is today a major concern to the crashworthiness community. A prerequisite for making this development possible is the establishment of a common side impact test method, representative of several traffic environments. Volvo has made a study aimed at determining the suitability of a moving barrier test as a tool for the development of side impact protection. Traffic accident data from car-to-car accidents have been used as reference to full-scale tests. Certain test parameters have been varied to find out if an improved correlation is possible between real-world accidents and laboratory collision. To further understand the interaction between the occupant and the car structure, sled testing has been used as a complement. The conclusion of the study is that a suitable side impact test method is a moving deformable barrier (MDB) impacting in a 90° noncrabbed configuration.