While ongoing advancements in automotive safety (along with
mandatory seatbelt use laws and stricter DUI enforcement) have helped drive
down traffic fatalities to record lows in recent years, motor vehicle crashes
remain the leading cause of death for individuals between the ages of three and
34.
According to the U.S. Department of Transportation, 32,885
people died in motor vehicle crashes during 2010, which represents a 2.9
percent drop over 2009 fatalities – that’s the lowest level since record
keeping began in 1949. Still, that means a vehicle-related fatality occurs an
average of once every 16 minutes; the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
pegs the cost of medical care and productivity losses associated with motor
vehicle crash injuries at over $99 billion, or nearly $500 for each licensed
driver in the United States.
Thus it’s no wonder that, according to a recent Consumer
Reports survey, 65 percent of respondents said safety was their top priority
among all buying considerations, trumping such stalwarts as quality, value and
performance. And women, who wield considerable influence in making family
purchases, coveted safety even further with 74 percent of female respondents
rating it as their top buying concern.
We scoured crash test results and spec sheets to identify
the vehicles that do the best job of protecting their occupants in a collision
and offer the most advanced systems to help motorists avoid accidents in the
first place.
To help safety-minded car shoppers make choices that could
save lives down the road, we’ve compiled Forbes.com’s annual list of what we
feel are the safest rides on the road among model-year 2012 vehicles.
We began our research with the recently released list of
“Top Safety Picks” from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS), a
non-profit organization funded by the insurance industry. For 2012 a total of
69 cars, 38 SUVs and three pickups made the cut, which includes 18 new
recipients. “For the second year running a record number of models qualify as
Top Safety Picks,” says IIHS president Adrian Lund. “It’s tough to win, and we
commend auto manufacturers for making safety a top priority.”
To qualify as an IIHS Top Safety Pick, a car must garner top
scores for performance in front, side, rollover and rear-end crashes based on
ratings determined by the IIHS’ evaluations. Vehicles are classified in each
category on a basis of “good,” “acceptable,” “marginal” or “poor” performance.
Unfortunately, testing is generally limited only to those vehicles having the
highest sales volumes, meaning sports cars, exotic models and upper-strata
luxury sedans like the Audi A8, BMW 7 Series, Lexus LS and Mercedes-Benz S-Class
aren’t included in the IIHS rating system. While we would expect those cars to
perform as well – or better – in a crash as any of the 110 cars the IIHS cites
as Top Safety Picks, we’ve limited our range of picks to models that sell, at
least in their base versions, for $50,000 or less.
Frontal crash tests are performed at 40 mph with
instrumented dummies wearing standard three-point safety belts measuring crash
forces to the chest, head and legs. In these “offset barrier” tests, only part
of a vehicle’s front end hits a deformable barrier that simulates the front of
another car or truck. However, be aware that frontal crash tests are only
useful when comparing vehicles within a specific weight class. A highly rated
subcompact car won’t necessarily perform better in a collision than will a
lower rated full-size model. That’s because the laws of physics dictate that
larger and heavier vehicles inherently offer greater crash protection than do
smaller and heavier ones.
Side-impact tests utilize a moving deformable barrier
approximating the front end of a pickup truck or large SUV that strikes a
vehicle at 31 mph. Instrumented test dummies are positioned in the driver’s
seat and the rear seat behind the driver, with each representing a small female
or adolescent child; the IIHS uses smaller dummies here because its data
suggests that women are more likely than men to suffer serious head injuries in
a side impact (their heads tend to be positioned lower in the window area where
they’re more vulnerable). Unlike frontal impact tests, the results of
side-impact crash tests can be compared across all vehicle size and weight
classes.
Article Credit: www.forbes.com
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