Crash test ratings are very important to determine the crashworthiness of a vehicle. The term “crashworthiness” refers to how good a vehicle can protect its passengers during a collision or crash.
What crash ratings say about car safety
Crash test ratings are gauging points on the reliability of a vehicle when it comes to safety. Car safety are classified as good, acceptable, average or failed based on the car’s performance in high speed front crash tests, side crash tests and rollover test including evaluation for seat and head restraints as protection against neck injuries during rear impacts.
Click the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) website to see your car safety ratings.
Is your car among the safest cars?
Crash test ratings are determining factors when picking the top 10 safest cars for a particular year. Information regarding the safest cars available in the market can tremendously help any car buyer in selecting the safest vehicle. Riding a safe vehicle saves lives. You may spend more money buying one of the safest cars in the market but you definitely won’t regret the decision.
Crash tests are usually concentrated on high volume vehicles. A number of mid-sized luxury vehicles scored just average and got a failed score in front crash tests. However, new vehicles of less than 3 years of age and of the same size have been proven to reduce traffic fatalities by a large percentage. This means that vehicle crash-related deaths are not a significant part of the top 10 causes of deaths in the United States.
Almost every new car performs well in other frontal crash test. Most of the fatalities comes from small overlap crashes. The latest test programs are results of long years of actual front crash analyses reliably simulated in a crash test laboratory to effectively determine how drivers or passengers can be seriously injured and how vehicles can be manufactured to protect passengers.
How protected are your passengers?
Crash test ratings also give points to seat and head restraints. These two crash protection features form part of effective units for protecting passengers and vehicle drivers.
The safety of child seat restraints are evaluated by agencies like Child Restraint Evaluation Program (CREP) to guide the vehicle buyers and users in their proper choice. This is to ensure that the car restraints provide high quality safety seats for any child or infant passenger.
Some vehicles have earned good ratings in crash tests simulating a small overlap crash showing how the front corner of the car hits a tree, a utility pole or another vehicle. They were Volvo S60 and Honda Acura TL. The acceptable rating was awarded to Infiniti G.