Top Safety Picks
One of the biggest selling points of any vehicle is how safe it is. If a car has qualified to be noted as a Top Safety Pick, more often than not, it’s a key point to mention in any commercial or publication. How, exactly, does a car become a Top Safety Pick?
The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) is a non-profit organization that puts together the ranking every year. As an organization, the IIHS’s main purpose is working towards reducing the number of car collisions, which subsequently lowers both the rate of injuries and amount of total property damage claimed. Beyond that, the Institute also reviews related products, like children’s car seats. The IIHS releases their list of Top Safety Picks every year, the results determined by different tests.
The tests undertaken include:
• Moderate overlap frontal test
• Side crash test
• Head restraint evaluation
• Roof strength test
Cars are ranked by performance in these above tests, on the scale from good, acceptable, marginal, or poor. In some cases, these rankings are determined by a series of sub-rankings in each test. For example, in the side crash test, there are nine categories that eventually determine the overall side impact score. A fifth test, a small overlap frontal test, is also performed, but has less weight in determining if a car is a Top Safety Pick.
There is a sixth test, a frontal collision avoidance evaluation. Since front crash prevention systems differ between vehicles, this particular test is not used to give the distinction of Top Safety Pick. However, a new category, Top Safety Pick+, is awarded to vehicles that have a rating of “basic” or higher in this test while meeting all other Top Safety Pick criteria.