The 'Safest' Cars And Crossovers For 2015

Have today’s cars gotten safer or are automakers simply getting better at designing cars that do well in crash tests? That’s long been both a question and a concern among analysts and consumers, as each year brings a larger assortment of models to market that ace tests conduced by both the federal government’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) and the insurance industry-supported Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS).
Both organizations have raised the proverbial bar of late with more stringent testing programs that have left automakers playing catch up. NHTSA updated its safety-rating program for the 2011 model year with tougher frontal- and side-impact evaluations, while the IIHS added a “small overlap” frontal crash test to its regimen in 2012 that replicates what happens when a vehicle’s left-front corner strikes a pole or other obstruction.
For its part the IIHS acknowledges, even doles out accolades, to automakers that design their vehicles specifically to do well in their crash tests. In a press release announcing its latest round of results, the Institute cited Honda for re-engineering its CR-V compact crossover SUV and Toyota for modifying the Prius v hybrid-powered wagon in response to poor showings in the small overlap assessment. Both received top marks for 2015.

Redesigned for 2015, the Hyundai Genesis is one of 33 models cited by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety as offering top crash protection and a “superior” grade forward-collision avoidance system.

While it’s easy to become cynical in this regard, it’s difficult to argue with success. Improved new-vehicle crash protection – combined with added federal safety regulations and stricter seatbelt, drunk driving and teen licensing laws at the state level – have combined to drive traffic fatalities to historic lows that reached just 1.10 deaths per 100 million vehicle miles driven in 2013.
Still, that amounts to 32,719 people killed in traffic crashes last year, which means the industry still has a long way to go in order to produce a truly “safe” car.
The latest frontier in auto safety is to help prevent vehicles from getting into collisions in the first place. The federal government has long mandated all cars and light duty trucks be fitted with antilock brakes and stability control to help drivers maintain control of their vehicles in panic stops and extreme handling maneuvers. Even better, a growing number of models are offering systems that warn of potential hazards, including when a vehicle is inadvertently drifting beyond highway lane markers or signaling the presence of other vehicles in a motorist’s blind spot.
The best are forward-collision mitigation systems that not only engage audible and visual warnings if sensors determine the car is closing in on the vehicle or other obstruction in its path too quickly, but will tighten seatbelt, pre-prime the brakes at full stopping power and will even engage the brakes at full force to help avoid, or at least minimize the effects of a crash if the driver isn’t reacting quickly enough. Most are designed to engage at higher speeds, though a few such systems, most notably offered in Volvo models, work to prevent rear-end collisions in stop-and-go traffic.
To that end, the IIHS recently updated its “Top Safety Pick+” designations to recognize models that not only earn top (“good”) ratings across the board in its frontal, side-impact, roof-crush, and head-protection crash tests – including the aforementioned small overlap test – but are able to successfully avert a collision or substantially reduce a vehicle’s speed in tests conducted at 12 and 25 mph. Vehicles that earn the top “superior” collision avoidance rating are able to successfully avoid a crash or substantially reduce a vehicle’s speed in both tests. To garner an “advanced” rating, a vehicle must include an auto-braking function and be able to avoid a crash or reduce speeds by at least 5 mph in either of the two tests.