How To Identify Your New Car Safety Ratings

One of the most important considerations you shouldheadshots and airbag release pressure. You will start
never overlook when buying a new or used vehicle isto see these improved safety sensors more and
its safety features. Safety has become moremore from new vehicles.
important to everyone in recent years; let's face itAnother very important consideration is the rollover
we spend a lot of time in our cars and with ourrate of the vehicle as well. Vehicles with a higher
families so car safety should outrank any cosmeticprofile are more likely to turn over. SUVs are up to
preferences. Now there are very specificthree times more likely to roll over than passenger
government and auto industry standards to keepvehicles. The majority of all SUV fatalities have been
you and your family safe so let's take a look at whatdue to rollover. Most SUVs come with options of 4
to look for.Wheel Drive or All Wheel Drive giving owners a false
One of the best car safety indicators of overallsense of security. Drivers of these vehicles think that
safety is the government crash test rating. All newbecause they have these options are invincible and
vehicles will have these ratings readily available and itpush the envelope then expect the vehicle to
is a great place to begin understanding what youperform whatever situations drivers put them in.
new car safety rating is. The National Highway TrafficUnfortunately, although they might have better
Safety Administration or NHTSA which you can findtraction in adverse weather and road conditions,
at is your first stop. The NHTSA uses two methodsthese vehicles have more of a possibility of tipping
of crash testing in determining the safety of thewhen sharp cornering is attempted.
vehicle, full frontal impact and side impact. TheAntilock brakes have been around awhile and are a
NHTSA uses a five star rating scale, the higher theproven safety device, which is why insurance
number of stars the safer the vehicle is, the lowercompanies give you a discount if your vehicle has
the number of stars the more dangerous the vehicle.them; we highly recommended that you buy a
You can find an outline of these car safety ratingsvehicle with ABS. Although many who use ABS the
and grades atfirst time hate the feeling of not stopping like they
The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety isused to, ABS does prevent the wheels from locking
another great resource to help with learning aboutup during a hard stop, something that can cause the
your car safety rating as well. The IIHS is a researchdriver to lose control of the vehicle. ABS almost
group which conducts crash tests as well but morealways provides shorter stops, but, even more
for the insurance industry. The one importantimportantly, the system helps keep the vehicle
difference about their frontal crash testing is thatstraight and allows the driver to maneuver during a
they use a more realistic offset testing method.panic stop.
Instead of crashing head on, which is extremely rareObviously child safety is what most of us really care
in frontal accidents, the crash test runs the vehicleabout first off and for good reason. If you do have
into a deformable barrier meant to simulate anotherinfants always make sure you look for a new
vehicle moving at 40 M.P.H. and the barrier onlytechnology called LATCH which stands for Lower
covering the portion of the vehicle in front of theAnchors and Tethers for Children. This universal
driver. Most head on accidents are usually offsetsystem was designed to make it easier and safer to
somewhat which usually results in worse damage dueattach car seats due to the fact that many car seats
to torque and structural weakness. The IISH carare incompatible with the vehicle's safety belts. You'll
safety tests cover this and help us understand thealso find more and more automobile manufacturers
reality of a true head on collision. The IISH scores orare adding build in car seats to ensure even more
ratings in their tests are rated by Good, Acceptable,safety for our children which you might see this
Marginal, or Poor.prominently in Mini Vans right now.
Now that you have a better idea of what your carOne more thing I'd like to touch on is the power
safety rating is, you will also want to know whatfeatures in a car. You should be sure that if the
type of air bag system the vehicle has. All newvehicle has power windows and door locks, which is
vehicles are only mandated by law to have dual frontbasically a standard feature on most models now, it
airbags but many manufacturers realizing thealso has disabling locks that you can control to keep
important of safety have begun to offer side andchildren from accidentally opening doors and windows
rear airbags as well which is even more important inand creating unwanted chances for injury.
multi passenger vehicles like vans and SUVs. The sideAs you can see there are many issues when
curtain airbags that drop down from the headlinerdiscussing new car safety and these are just a few
offer greater head protection from the side and areof the main safety features to look for. There are
highly recommended. Some vehicles now even havemany other Consumer Reports and car safety
weight sensors as well that disable the airbag if areviews that provide even more information and
person below a certain weight is sitting there. Thisprovide good source for comprehensive car safety
improvement came about from the first airbags thatinformation.
injured shorter people in the front seat due to