Safer Cars

Safety ranks high among the concerns that people consider when purchasing a new automobile. Although each new passenger vehicle is required to meet federal standards in regards to minimum safety levels, not all cars are considered to be equally safe.

Even though it is impossible to designate a car as the safest on the road, it is possible to identify safer cars. Many vehicles are equipped with important safety features, and some even go beyond the required minimum. They range from basic, (the vehicle's size and weight), to advanced, (belt crash tensioners).

The most important safety features designate Crashworthiness. They reduce the risk of death or serious injury when a crash occurs. These features include:

• Vehicle Structural Design - A good structural design should have a strong occupant compartment, or safety cage, and front and rear ends designed to buckle and bend in serious crashes to absorb crash forces. Not all vehicles are designed with equally high safety standards.
• Vehicle Size and Weight - Larger, heavier vehicles are safer than smaller, lighter ones. However, in many single-vehicle crashes, weight offers no advantage.
• Restraint Systems - Lap/shoulder belts, airbags, and head restraints work together with a vehicle's structure to protect people in serious crashes.
• Belt Crash Tensioners activate early in a crash to tighten any slack in the belt and prevent some of the forward movement. Even this cannot prevent injury in some of the more serious frontal crashes.
• Airbags not only provide additional restraint to the head and upper body, they also double the protection against serious head injury that lap/shoulder belts offer by themselves. Note: Belted drivers should sit with the center of the chest at least 10 inches away from the steering wheel to prevent a potential airbag injury.
• Head Restraints prevent your head from being snapped back. To prevent injury it should be positioned directly behind and close to the back of your head.

Crash testing provides comparisons between passenger vehicles within the same weight class. Full front (conducted by the US Department of Transportation), and frontal offset tests (conducted by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety), complement each other, and ideally a vehicle should perform equally well in both.

• In full front crash tests the whole front end of each vehicle hits a rigid barrier at 35 mph, which provides a good indication of the performance of restraints in serious crashes of this type.
• In frontal offset crash tests, only part of a vehicle's front end hits a deformable barrier at 40 mph. This simulates how well the vehicle's safety cage and crash zones manage the energy of a serious two-vehicle crash.

Crash avoidance features such as brakes, tires, lights, and turn signals are essential, although few of the more advanced features like traction control and four-wheel-drive have been proven to reduce crashes.
Antilock Brakes pump automatically, many times a second, to prevent lock-up and enable a driver to maintain steering control. Even though this means shorter stopping distances on wet and slippery roads, the same cannot be said of dry roads. Cars with antilock brakes are in more single-vehicle crashes than cars with conventional brakes. If they are present in your vehicle, make sure you know how to use them.

• Daytime Running Lights are high beam headlights at reduced intensity, or low beam headlights at full or reduced power that are activated by the ignition switch. This feature can prevent other vehicles from hitting you during the day by increasing the contrast between your vehicle and the background.
• Brakes and Tires are directly related to driving at safe speeds. Tires are the only contact that your vehicle has with the road. At any moment, your tires have only one square foot of rubber in contact with the road. The grip of that rubber depends on the condition of the road and the speed at which you are traveling. Remember, if your tires are in good condition, but your brakes are worn, you may still be unable to stop safely, and worn or bald tires increase your stopping distance.
• Turn Signals let other drivers know of your plans to turn so they can adjust their driving to allow you to turn safely. You must signal before making every turn.

On the road experience of the driver is also a large factor in determining the safety of a vehicle. Young drivers behind the wheel of high performance or small utility vehicles can be a dangerous combination. They are unsure of how to handle the power of the vehicle, and do not yet know how to properly use the crash avoidance features.