Crashworthiness and Car Accidents

The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety and the Highway Loss Data Institute offer ratings on the crashworthiness of vehicles when it comes to auto accidents. Crashworthiness is the ability a vehicle has to protect the persons inside from harm during a crash. Vehicles are rated as good, acceptable, marginal, or poor. These ratings are found by using side and front crash tests along with rollover tests with tests for the restraints during rear end collisions.

Crashworthiness Top Picks for 2009

For large cars, the Ford Taurus, Buick LaCrosse, and Volvo S80 were rated the best overall for crashworthiness. For mid-sized cars, the Audi A3, Chevy Malibu, Dodge Avenger, and Subaru Legacy were rated the best. For mid-sized SUVs, the Dodge Journey, Subaru Tribeca and Volvo XC60 and 90 were rated the best. For small SUVs, the Honda Element, Jeep Patriot and Subaru Forester were ranked highest, and for small cars, the Honda Civic, Kia Soul and Nissan Cube were ranked the highest for crashworthiness.

Ratings and Accidents

Although there are many great vehicles that offer good crashworthiness ratings, this does not affect the amount of accidents for any vehicle. Even if a person bought every vehicle rated good or above for crashworthiness, the incidents of an accident in any one of these vehicles does not decrease. The fact remains that out of every 100 vehicles, at least 33 will be in an accident within a year. Over 33% of all vehicles on the road in any given year will be involved in an accident, and this includes those that are rated the highest. However, those vehicles that have the highest crashworthiness ratings will see less incurred injuries than other vehicles.

The fact remains that during any accident, there is a possibility of death or serious injury occurring. With this being said, many consumers will purchase vehicles that have higher crashworthiness ratings so that if there was an accident, the people inside will have fewer injuries than those in comparable accidents in other vehicles. Those with higher crashworthiness ratings are generally more expensive, simply due to having more safety features built in that require adding on to a base model.

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