Are you in the market for a new car? There are many variables that you have to consider. It is easy to focus excessively on price and luxury features. However, safety is a significant factor that you can’t afford to overlook.
There are over 33,000 car accident fatalities in the United States every year. There are over 4 million additional injuries every year as well.
The outcomes of these accidents will be much better if you have the right medical professionals by your side. Joseph Hochstein, a North Miami car accident doctor has stated that prompt medical treatment is necessary after any accident.
“Any patient that endures a car accident must get screened as quickly as possible. Undetected problems can surface days after the adrenaline wears off and become serious very quickly,” Hochstein said.
However, it would be better to avoid getting in an accident in the first place. Many of these tragic accidents could have been avoided by having the right car. You will need to do your due diligence when purchasing a vehicle to ensure that it meets your safety standards. Unfortunately, this is going to be easier said than done.
The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety recently published a list of the safest cars for 2021. They recognized 64 vehicles for their high safety ratings.
It might be tempting to defer to the listing and choose one of the safest cars at the top of the list. However, this might not be the best assumption to make. The IIHS used different criteria to decide which vehicles were the safest. Therefore, even though some cars were listed at the top of the list, that does not necessarily mean that they were the safest vehicle for everybody.
You need to choose a vehicle that is right for your specific situation. To make this decision, you will need to be aware of the different safety criteria used in the evaluations.
The IIHS report conducted seven different tests. You can find descriptions of each of them for each car under the report. The relevant criteria are listed below.
Front crash test
The most critical safety factor to look at is how well a vehicle will be able to handle a front crash. To make this determination, the analysts conducted three different tests. They performed a moderate overlap test, a driver-side overlap test and a passenger-side overlap test.
The purpose of these tests was to determine the level of damage the vehicle would sustain under various conditions and the pattern of the damage. The tests used two crash dummies to anticipate the type of injuries that would occur.
Side crash test
This test was carried out to see how two different dummies would respond after the vehicle was in a T-bone accident or other side crash. One dummy was placed in the front seat, while another dummy was placed in the rear. Each had paint placed on their heads.
The goal was to see which parts of the vehicle would touch the dummies heads if the car was hit from the side. Vehicles were ranked higher if only the airbags touched their heads.
Roof strength test
To conduct this test, the researchers dropped a metal plate on one side of the roof, while the vehicle was traveling at a constant speed. Cars were given high ratings if they could support four times their weight before the plate caused the roof to deform by 5 inches. Cars were given acceptable ratings if they had a strength to weight ratio of 3.25 or better. Those with ratings between 2.5 and 3.25 were rated as marginal. Those with strength to weight ratios below 2.5 were considered poor.
Head restraint and seek testing
The purpose of this test was to evaluate how well the seats of the car support the torso, neck and head after a severe rear-end crash. The test was focused primarily on head restraint geometry. The goal was to make sure that the head restraint was at least as high as the head’s center of gravity, which was assumed to be 3.5 inches below the top of the head.
Front crash prevention test
The purpose of this test was to evaluate the car’s ability to come to a stop with automatic braking. It used the parameters outlined under the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. These parameters suggest that the system should issue a warning in five out of seven tests before a certain period of time passes.
This test also analyzed how the vehicle would handle three different scenarios involving pedestrians. The first was when an adult was perpendicular to the direction of the car. The second was when a child was positioned perpendicularly. The third was when an adult was parallel to the car. The first two were conducted with the vehicle operating between 12 and 25 mph, while the last test was conducted at a speed between 25 and 37 mph.
Headlight evaluation
In this evaluation, the range of the headlights was measured both in a straight line and in curves. In addition, it used sensors to calculate how far the light extends from the vehicle with an intensity of at least 5 lux.
LATCH evaluation
This was a test for the LATCH system or child safety seat attachment system. It evaluated lower anchor accessibility, restraint strength, and angle of clearance.
