Auto Safety, Safety Considerations, Vehicle Weight

Safety Considerations : Weight Matters

Safety - Safety should be your most important consideration when looking for a new or used motor vehicle. I strongly recommend that you visit Crashtest.com early in the car-buying process, to get the safety rating for the cars you are considering. Every year they publish crash-test results from the Federal Government's New Car Assessment Program (NCAP) and the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS). In addition to the most current information, they feature safety data on older cars, which lets you assess used cars.

Safety Considerations - Safety should be your most important consideration when looking for a new or used motor vehicle. I strongly recommend that you visit Crashtest.com early in the car-buying process, to get the safety rating for the cars you are considering. Every year they publish crash-test results from the Federal Government's New Car Assessment Program (NCAP) and the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS). In addition to the most current information, they feature safety data on older cars, which lets you assess used cars.

I divide safety into three categories: the weight of a vehicle, passive safety features that help people stay alive and uninjured in a crash, and active safety features that help drivers avoid accidents. Larger, heavier cars with poor ratings may easily produce better results than smaller cars with good ratings. (See the next section, Weight Matters.) In addition to a car that crashes well (Passive Safety), you should look for a car that can avoid a crash altogether (Active Safety). Keep in mind that all of this testing was done with test dummies wearing seat belts and shoulder harnesses. Without them, a 15 mile per hour crash could prove fatal.

Four-wheel-drive pick-up trucks and sport utility vehicles (SUVs) are designed to be driven for work, hauling, and off-road purposes. They were not designed to be people movers, and don't handle nearly as well as passenger cars or mini vans. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) reports that SUVs are four times more likely to roll over than passenger cars in high-speed maneuvers. In addition, SUV-to-car collisions are six times more likely to kill the occupants of the smaller vehicle when compared to a normal car-to-car collision. You may be safer inside an SUV, but you're at greater risk of killing others in the event of an accident.

Weight Matters - All cars must meet US Department Of Transportation standards for crash-worthiness. Larger and heavier cars, however, are usually safer in a collision than smaller ones. If a heavier vehicle collides head-on with a lighter one, the lighter will suffer substantially more damage. Drivers under 20 experience a much higher percentage of traffic fatalities when compared to other drivers, so consider the safety of a large or mid-sized sedan for inexperienced drivers. Large cars offer increased levels of comfort and roominess when compared to their smaller siblings, and today's fuel injected engines allow mid-sized, 6-cylinder automobiles to enjoy remarkably good gas mileage.

Passive Safety Features & Active Safety Features are on the next page>

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