Shopping for a safe car

Not only do vehicles vary in size and color, they can also vary in safety.

There are still important safety differences, and some vehicles are safer than others. Many automakers offer safety features beyond the required federal minimums. The following safety features should be considered when purchasing a car:

Crashworthiness

These features reduce the risk of death or serious injury when a crash occurs. You can get a rating of crashworthiness from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety’s Web site (http://www.highwaysafety.org).

Vehicle structural design

A good structural design has a strong occupant compartment, known as the safety cage, as well as front and rear ends designed to buckle and bend in a crash to absorb the force of the crash. These crush zones should keep damage away from the safety cage because once the cage starts to collapse, the likelihood of injury increases rapidly.

Vehicle size and weight

The laws of physics dictate that larger and heavier cars are safer than lighter and smaller ones. Small cars have twice as many occupant deaths each year as large cars. In crashes involving smaller and larger vehicles, heavier vehicles drive lighter ones backwards, decreasing the forces inside the heavier car and increasing them in the lighter car.

Restraint systems

Belts, airbags and head restraints all work together with a vehicle’s structure to protect people in serious crashes. Lap/shoulder belts hold you in place, reducing the chance you’ll slam into something hard or get ejected from the crashing vehicle. If you aren’t belted, you’ll continue moving forward until something suddenly stops you – often a hard interior surface that will cause injuries.

Shoulder belts are on inertia reels that allow upper body movement during normal driving, but lock during hard braking or in a crash. Belt webbing is stored on the reel, and during a frontal crash any slack in the webbing can allow some forward movement of your upper body. Then you could strike the steering wheel, dashboard or windshield. This problem is addressed in some cars with belt crash tensioners that activate early in a collision to reel in belt slack and prevent some of the forward movement.
Airbags and lap/shoulder belts together are very effective. However in some circumstances, a deploying airbag can cause serious injuries and even death. The greatest risk of injury occurs when you are on top of, or very close to an airbag when it starts to inflate. Choose a car that allows you to reach the gas and brake pedals comfortably without sitting too close to the steering wheel. Some cars offer telescoping steering column adjustments that may help.
Side airbags are designed principally to protect your chest. They may also keep your head from hitting interior or intruding structures.
Head restraints are required in the front seats of all new passenger cars to keep your head from being snapped back, injuring your neck in a rear-end crash. But there are big differences among head restraints. Some are adjustable, and others are fixed. They also vary in height and how far they are set back from the head. To prevent neck injury, a head restraint has to be directly behind and close to the back of your head. Look for cars that have this type of restraint. If the restraints are adjustable, make sure they can be locked into place. Some don’t lock, so they can get pushed down in a crash.

Anti-lock brakes

When you brake hard with conventional brakes, the wheels may lock and cause skidding and a lack of control. Anti-lock brakes pump brakes automatically many times a second to prevent lockup and allow you to keep control of the car. If you were trained to brake gently on slippery roads or pump your brakes to avoid a skid, you may have to unlearn these habits and use hard, continuous pressure to activate your antilock brakes. Anti-lock brakes may help you keep steering control, but they won’t necessarily help you stop more quickly.

Daytime running lights

Daytime running lights are activated by the ignition switch. They are typically high-beam headlights at reduced intensity or low-beam lights at full or reduced power. By increasing the contrast between a vehicle and its backgrounds and making the vehicles more visible to oncoming drivers, these lights can prevent daytime accidents.

On the road experience

Other design characteristics can influence injury risk on the road. Some small utility vehicles and pickups are prone to rolling over. “High performance” cars typically have higher-than-average death rates because drivers are tempted to use excessive speed. Combining a young driver and a high-performance car can be particularly dangerous.

Source: Insurance Information Institute; www.iii.org

As you are driving down the freeway at 80mph to get to work, your cell phone buzzes to let you know that you just received an email. You snatch up the phone with one h and while the other holds the steering wheel, as you read and laugh over the satirical digital newsletter about the world’s dumbest drivers.

As you swerve to miss a loading van, you decide to send a text message about the email to your friend at the office. With both h ands typing on the tiny keyboard on your cell phone, you rely on your knee on the steering wheel ( and your cousin Billy Bob’s mechanical genius on repairing cars) to guide your high speeding vehicle down the road.

The irony should be obvious. Driving while all your attention is focused on typing out a text to a friend you are going to see in the next 20 minutes at work is dangerous. Both h ands are off the steering wheel, you are traveling at high speeds, and your eyes and attention are split between typing out the text and staying in your traffic lane. According to National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, over 3,092 people were killed in vehicle crashes in 2010 that had involved a distracted driver and 416,000 people were injured in vehicle accidents caused by a distracted driver. In addition, text messaging while you are distracted creates a 23-times greater risk in causing a serious crash than a driver who is paying attention to the road.

Individual States Take Action To Ban Texting While Driving

When people hear statistics like this, some will start shaking their heads and proclaiming to the sky that they are an excellent driver who can multitask. But why would you multitask while driving several tons of moving metal down the road at dangerous speeds? Why would you risk your safety, the safety of your passengers, the safety of other drivers, and the safety of pedestrians all because you can’t wait to park your car and turn it off before sending a text message?

With the growing concerns of distracted drivers causing serious accidents while texting, the government has stepped in to introduce bills to address this dangerous problem. In 2009, the Distracted Driving Prevention Act and the ALERT Drivers Act encourages states to take action in creating laws about drivers and texting, according to Consumer Reports. While one government act gives financial incentives to states who create texting bans, the other act takes away state funding for highway services in an attempt to force states to become proactive towards the problem.

As stated by The Insurance Institute of Highway Safety, text messaging has been banned in 38 states, including California, for all drivers. Only 5 states ban texting for drivers under the age of 21 or for novice drivers who only have their learner’s permit. The states that have not created a ban are Arizona, Florida, Montana, South Dakota, Ohio, and South Carolina.

Keep Your Teens Safe Behind The Wheel

Even if you decide to practice highway safety, your teen drivers might still feel the itch of placing their typing fingers on the phone’s keyboard while driving. As the Federal Communications Commission stresses, parents need to talk with their children about driving safely. Discuss how important their lives are and that no message is important enough to become distracted while behind the steering wheel.

Also, lead by example yourself and show your kids at an early age that you can keep your h ands off the cell phone while driving.