The 2008 Ford Taurus and Mercury Sable will arrive in showrooms this summer bearing Top Safety Pick ratings by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) and the government’s highest available five-star ratings in all crash test categories.

The IIHS’ “Top Safety Pick” rating can only be earned by vehicles that achieve the best-available safety performance in frontal, side and rear collisions and offer electronic stability control. In addition to being the only large family cars to merit IIHS’ Top Safety Pick rating, these sedans stand alone for also earning five-star driver and passenger crash test ratings from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA).

“It’s a true testament to the safety engineering of these vehicles that they achieved top crash test ratings from both IIHS and NHTSA,” said Sue Cischke, senior vice president of Sustainability, Environment and Safety Engineering, Ford Motor Company. “Ford and Volvo worked together to leverage our technical and intellectual resources to create this outstanding vehicle architecture, and now it’s better than ever. These cars offer it all: safety, power, spaciousness, comfort and great features, all at a great value.”

The Insurance Institute also gave both vehicles its highest rear impact rating for offering effective protection against neck injuries, as well as its highest front and side impact ratings for withstanding intrusion into the occupant compartment.

The structure of the Taurus and Sable is engineered with crush zones designed to direct excess energy around the passenger compartment into a high-strength safety cage. An innovative cross-car beam “SPACE™ Architecture” under the front seats reinforces the structure between the B-pillars, which helps direct energy away from passengers.

Both vehicles offer an industry first two-row Safety Canopy™ side air bag system that provides additional protection not only in side impact collisions, but also deploys in rollover accidents. Side-impact protection comes from a combination of air bag technology and structural features that help safeguard occupants from intrusion by channeling crash energy away from the passenger compartment.
Produced for Ford

Duration : 0:2:8

Forty percent of the fatal collisions of people 70 and older compared with 23 percent of fatal crashes of 35-54 year-olds, occur at intersections and involve other vehicles, according to a recently released study by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS).

IIHS is a nonprofit scientific and educational organization dedicated to reducing deaths, injuries and property damage on the nation’s highways. It is wholly supported by auto insurers like Unitrin Specialty.

The IIHS wanted to know what mistakes were leading a disproportionate number of older motorists to get into intersection crashes. To find out, the Institute studied intersection crashes on Connecticut roads involving more than 200 drivers in three age groups: — two groups of older drivers (70-79 years old and 80-plus) and a comparison group of 35-54 year-olds.

Among the drivers in Connecticut, rear-end crashes accounted for a lower proportion of 80-plus drivers’ intersection crashes. Both groups of older drivers had lower proportions of run-off-the road crashes than 35-54 year-olds. In contrast, failure to yield the right of way to other vehicles led to more than half of the intersection crashes for which the oldest drivers were responsible. This compares with about one-third of the intersection crashes of 70-79 year-olds and about one fourth of those involving 35-54 year-olds.

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Why they crashed

Reasons for the intersection crashes varied by driver age.  People 70-79 made more evaluation errors than drivers of other ages. That is, they saw potentially conflicting vehicles but misjudged whether there was time to proceed.

Drivers in the other age groups (35-54 and 80-plus) more often failed to see potentially conflicting vehicles. The 35-54 year-olds said it was because they became distracted, while most of the drivers 80-plus said they were looking but simply didn’t see the conflict.

The IIHS said failure to see other vehicles “may be due to increases in vision impairments, which escalate rapidly after about age 75. Another factor could involve the complexity of urban intersections, with vehicles traveling in multiple directions. Older drivers may experience decreasing ability to process the multiple sources of information at once and maneuver safely.”

Range of head movement might also be a factor in older drivers’ crashes. These ranges have been found to decrease with age, which could hinder a driver’s ability to see potentially conflicting vehicles.

Whatever the reasons for the intersection crashes, those involving failure to yield occurred more often where traffic is controlled by stop signs than at intersections with signal lights  (more rear-end crashes occurred at the signals). Fifty-nine percent of the

failure-to-yield crashes occurred at stop signs, and 50 percent of these crashes occurred

while motorists were turning left. The proportions didn’t vary much across the three age groups.

Reducing the risks of older drivers

Crashes per capita are lower among older drivers than people in any other age group, mostly because fewer older people have licenses and those who do drive fewer miles.

But when older people get behind the wheel, their risk of crashing and dying is high.

A challenge is to identify problem drivers before they crash — and even if the hazardous ones can be identified, then what?

A number of approaches are being tried. For example, provisions in some states require people older than specified ages to renew their licenses more often, thus creating more frequent screening opportunities.  Such provisions apply in addition to the usual ones designed to identify drivers of all ages who no longer meet licensing standards because of physical or mental infirmities.  Officials in a few states are trying vision tests or road tests. Where these approaches have been evaluated, results are mixed.

Rhonda Norris
http://www.articlesbase.com/insurance-articles/more-older-drivers-involved-in-intersection-fatalities-744492.html

The Smartcar is getting a lot of attention for its small size and style, and now it’s earning impressive crash test ratings. In recent Insurance Institute for Highway Safety tests, the 2008 Smart Fortwo, the smallest car for sale in the US market, earned the top rating of good for front and side crash protection. Its seat/head restraints earned the second highest rating of acceptable for protection against whiplash in rear impacts.

Smart Fortwo is classified a microcar, meaning it’s smaller even than minicars. Weighing about 1,800 pounds, the Smart is more than 3 feet shorter and almost 700 pounds lighter than a Mini Cooper. It weighs about a third as much as one of the heaviest vehicles the Institute has tested, the BMW X5, a midsize SUV. As the price of fuel climbs and tougher federal fuel economy requirements kick in, auto companies are expected to introduce more small vehicles to the market. The Smart is the smallest car the Institute ever has tested.

“The big question from consumers is, ‘How safe is it?’”, says Institute president Adrian Lund. “All things being equal in safety, bigger and heavier is always better. But among the smallest cars, the engineers of the Smart did their homework and designed a high level of safety into a very small package.”

Produced for the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety

Duration : 0:2:29

Toyota Yaris
2007-08 models
SIDE IMPACT TEST WITHOUT OPTIONAL SIDE AIRBAGS

OVERALL EVALUATION: Poor
Injury measures Head protection Structure/safety cage
Head/neck Torso Pelvis/leg
Driver Poor Marginal Acceptable Poor Acceptable
Rear passenger Good Good Good Marginal

Important: Side impact crash test ratings can be compared across vehicle type and weight categories.
Test details:

The Toyota Yaris was introduced in the 2007 model year.

Two tests of the Yaris were conducted, one with optional side airbags for the driver and rear passenger, and one without. These vehicles are rated separately, except that the structural ratings for both vehicles are based on both tests.
Injury measures:

Driver — Measures taken from the dummy indicate serious skull fracture and/or brain injuries would be likely in a crash of this severity. Rib fractures and/or internal organ injuries and a fracture of the pelvis would also be possible.

Rear passenger — Measures taken from the dummy indicate a low risk of any significant injuries in a crash of this severity.
Head protection:

Driver — The dummy’s head was hit by the intruding barrier, producing high head injury measures.

Rear passenger — The dummy’s head was hit by the pillar behind the rear side window and by the window frame and sill. These impacts did not produce high head injury measures, but the head protection is inadequate.

Toyota Yaris
2007-08 models
SIDE IMPACT TEST WITH OPTIONAL SIDE AIRBAGS

OVERALL EVALUATION: Good
Injury measures Head protection Structure/safety cage
Head/neck Torso Pelvis/leg
Driver Good Good Good Good Acceptable
Rear passenger Good Good Good Good

Important: Side impact crash test ratings can be compared across vehicle type and weight categories.
Test details:

The Toyota Yaris was introduced in the 2007 model year.

Two tests of the Yaris were conducted, one with optional side airbags for the driver and rear passenger, and one without. These vehicles are rated separately, except that the structural ratings for both vehicles are based on both tests.
Injury measures:

Driver — Measures taken from the dummy indicate a low risk of any significant injuries in a crash of this severity.

Rear passenger — Measures taken from the dummy indicate a low risk of any significant injuries in a crash of this severity.
Head protection:

Driver — The dummy’s head was protected from being hit by any hard structures, including the intruding barrier, by a side curtain airbag that deployed from the roof.

Rear passenger — The dummy’s head was protected from being hit by any hard structures, including the intruding barrier, by a side curtain airbag that deployed from the roof.

Duration : 0:0:52

Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) releases Driver Death Rates by Make and Model – April 2007

Presented by The Auto Channel, the Internet’s most complete and comprehensive automotive resource

Duration : 0:8:23