Safe bet: buying a safer car has never been easier

While many of today's cars boast dazzling features like satellite navigation, DVD entertainment centers and high-output engines, what really thrills us is that terrific safety engineering and technology is now available for cars and SUVs in just about every price range. According to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS), an insurance industry safety research organization, these developments have great potential to save lives and reduce injuries.

Here are some of the latest safety improvements to consider when shopping for a vehicle:

ELECTRONIC STABILITY CONTROL (ESC).

This helps the driver maintain control during extreme steering maneuvers. According to the IIHS, equipping cars and SUVs can reduce the risk of involvement in fatal single-vehicle crashes by more than 50 percent. ESC works with the vehicle's antilock braking system (ABS), responding to the dynamics of the car and to the driver's steering input. When the system senses an imminent loss of control, it applies individual brakes to maintain traction and directional stability.

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SIDE AIRBAGS WITH HEAD PROTECTION. In real-world accidents these systems are saving lives. Side airbags that include head protection are reducing deaths by about 45 percent among drivers of passenger cars struck on the driver side.

BETTER ROLLOVER PROTECTION. This is especially welcome for occupants in taller, narrower vehicles, including SUVs, vans and sport trucks. Large, curtain-style side-impact head protecting airbags offer protection from injury as well as ejection from the vehicle, the largest cause of fatalities in rollovers. Some new SUVs can be ordered with variable ride-height, which enables you to improve stability by lowering the center of gravity when you don't need maximum ground clearance. Lowering an SUV also helps prevent it from over-riding the bumper or protective side structures of other, smaller vehicles in a collision.

ROOM FOR IMPROVEMENT. In recent IIHS dynamic testing of seat and head restraints, only eight of 73 vehicles tested did a good job of protecting occupants from whiplash and similar injuries in rear-end crashes. While designing for these types must take into consideration numerous variables, including driver size and posture, we would like to see improvements in the seat/head restraint geometry and other factors.

REVIEW OF NHTSA'S SAFER CAR WEB SITE. This site enables visitors to learn about safety features, such as traction control and various airbag arrangements, and then find cars of the type the motorist wants that have those features.

SOURCES:

Insurance Institute for Highway Safety--http://www.iihs.org/

SaferCar.gov, a web site of the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration http://www.nhtsa.dot.gov/cars/testing/NCAP/

CIRCLE NO. 36 ON PRODUCT INFO CARD