The Safest Cars On The Roads

Safety should be the topmost priority especially in choosing vehicles. This is why every car shopper should know the safest cars that he can grab. So which cars are safe?
Luxury cars are among the safest vehicles on the road, and the Acura RL, Audi A4 and Saab 9-3 get the highest safety marks of all, wrote Dan Lienert of Forbes. Sounds good for the manufacturer of the Acura air filter and other automakers that made it to the prestigious list. So if you are hit by a vehicle, silently wish it is an Acura RL.

Joining Acura RL at the top is the Audi A4 and Saab 9-3. All three vehicles get the highest marks for safety from three of the four most respected sources of such data. Sources include Consumer Reports, the Department of Transportation, and the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) and the Highway Loss Data Institute (HLDI).
Additionally, all three vehicles carry Consumer Reports' highest-possible rating for accident-avoidance capabilities. The Acura RL also has perfect crash-test scores from both the Department of Transportation's National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) and from the IIHS. According to HLDI, the A4 and 9-3 have perfect IIHS crash-test scores, as well as substantially better-than-average (in this case, lower-than-average) frequencies of insurance injury-claim filings.

In order for a vehicle to garner the highest-possible rating, it has to have at least two of the following: first, Consumer Reports' highest-possible rating for accident-avoidance capabilities. Second, perfect NHTSA crash-test scores across the board. Third, perfect IIHS crash-test scores across the board. Finally, a substantially better-than-average (i.e. lower-than-average) frequency of insurance injury-claim filings, according to the HLDI.
According to Forbes, the company only looked at cars that the NHTSA and the IIHS have tested in all of their available categories: for NHTSA, two frontal-impact tests, two side-impact tests and a rollover-resistance test; for the IIHS, front, side and rear tests.
The organizations we used as sources do not test every car on the market, nor do the crash-testing agencies put each car through every test they have, the company added. The sources we consulted try to assess a broad range of vehicles, but they lack the data or the resources to do all of them.
What is the significance of determining good from bad crash-test rating? Forbes made it apparent: “A five-star NHTSA frontal-crash rating means a chance of serious injury of ten percent or less in a head-on collision in which each vehicle is going 35 mph. A one-star rating means a chance of 46 percent or higher. NHTSA defines a ‘serious injury’ as one that requires immediate hospitalization and may be life-threatening.”
Lienert continued: “The IIHS conducts a frontal-offset crash test in which the vehicle strikes a deformable barrier at 40 miles per hour. The organization obtains injury measurements from a crash test dummy, representing an average-sized man, in the driver seat. In the side-impact test a 3,300-pound barrier, which represents the front end of a pickup or SUV, strikes the side of the tested vehicle at 31 mph. The IIHS obtains injury measurements from two crash test dummies, representing a small woman in the driver seat and a small woman or adolescent in the rear seat behind the driver.”
The ratings of Consumer Reports' for accident-avoidance capabilities in cars are based on objective tests the organization conducts. The company believes the most important factors are braking and emergency handling.