Thanks to sophisticated engineering and extensive safety testing (combined with better roads, increased seatbelt and infant car-seat use, reduced speed limits, and stricter drunk-driving laws), the number of auto-related fatalities has dropped dramatically in recent decades. An estimated 41,800 Americans perished in accidents during 2001, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). This translates into approximately 1.5 fatalities per 100 million miles traveled in cars or light-duty trucks. By comparison, 3.3 people died for every 100 million miles traveled in 1977. Still, motor-vehicle crashes continue to be the major cause of unintentional injuries for Americans of all ages, and are the leading cause of death for those age 6 to 33.

 

Since 1999, all new passenger cars and light trucks have been equipped with dual front airbags.

Thus, vehicular safety continues to be among new-car buyers' top concerns. All vehicles have become better engineered to protect occupants in a crash, and to help motorists avoid them in the first place. Engineers call these innovations passive and active safety features, respectively. More than 100 separate components in a typical vehicle contribute to its overall safety, and new-car purchasers seem more-than-willing to spend the extra money to help protect their loved ones. Fortunately, even the least-expensive vehicles today offer advanced safety features like antilock brakes and side-impact airbags that were only available on luxury cars a decade ago.

Today's cars and trucks are specifically designed and built to help passengers survive a wide range of types and severities of collisions. So-called "crumple zones" at the front and rear of a vehicle are engineered to absorb and redirect crash forces. Hoods are engineered to collapse so they won't be forced through the windshield. Doors are designed to remain intact and overlap upon impact so passengers will be able to exit the vehicle. Doors are also are equipped with more-secure hinges and latches so they won't spring open to eject passengers. Heavier firewalls and specially designed engine mounts help send components down and under the passenger area, so they won't come crashing into the front seat. Windshields are specially laminated to help prevent not only injuries from shattering glass, but ejection from the vehicle in a collision.

Stronger passenger compartments, reinforced by race-carlike "safety cage" structures offer cocoonlike protection to help keep the occupant area intact in an accident. Padded, energy-absorbing materials and other interior design elements further help reduce injuries. Head restraints, now being added to rear as well as front seats, help prevent whiplash injuries. Some automakers, including Volvo, Saab, and General Motors, have introduced head restraints that move slightly under certain crash conditions to help further reduce neck injuries.

Still, all else being equal, the laws of physics dictate that a larger and heavier car will provide its passengers with better protection in a crash than would a smaller and lighter vehicle. That's because a larger car is able to absorb more of the crash energy in a collision. But it's not always practical, desirable, or financially possible to simply select the largest car or truck on a dealer's lot, purely for its physical mass. Plus, with engineers using increasingly lighter-weight construction and materials to help improve a vehicle's fuel economy, design elements such as these are particularly critical to passenger safety.

 

Seat Belts are your Primary Protection

New technology has improved occupant safety dramatically in recent years. Yet properly used seatbelts are still the first, and best, line of protection in the event of an accident.

Within the confines of a vehicle, occupant restraints-primarily seatbelts and supplementary airbags-are designed to protect against the effects of an accident's so-called "second collision." The "first collision" occurs when a vehicle crashes into an object. The second collision happens about one-fiftieth of a second later, when its otherwise unrestrained occupants, still moving forward at the vehicle's original speed, smash into the steering wheel, dashboard and/or windshield. Experts say buckling the three-point lap-and-shoulder harness is the most effective safeguard against the effects of the second collision. They are also a passenger's primary protection from being ejected from a vehicle. Seventy-five percent of those ejected from vehicles in collisions die from their injuries.

Fifty states and the District of Columbia mandate seatbelt use. NHTSA reports that seatbelt use is at an all-time high, with an estimated 75 percent of all motorists buckling up during 2002, compared to only 58 percent in 1994, the first year in which the agency began keeping statistics. Seatbelts are credited with preventing 12,000 motor-vehicle deaths per year.

All vehicles come with 3-point lap/shoulder belts for the outboard seating positions. Some include only 2-point lap belts for the center seats, though a growing number of vehicles are using 3-point belts for the inboard seats.

It's vital that all vehicle occupants be buckled, not just those in the front seats. Unrestrained rear-seat passengers are tossed around like rag dolls during a collision or rollover, exposing themselves and front-seat occupants to injury.

Lap and shoulder belts must be worn somewhat snugly to be most effective. Experts say they'll not only offer greater protection in a collision, but will help keep you squarely in the seat during hard-cornering maneuvers. To that end, some vehicles include "pretensioners" that automatically pull the belts tight in a collision.

Belts can bother shorter people and children when they rest on the side of the neck or across the face (this is often an excuse for not wearing them). To help solve this problem, NHTSA requires all vehicles to include upper anchor positions for front-seat shoulder belts that are height-adjustable, allowing a more comfortable "fit" for passengers. Some vehicles also provide height adjustments for outboard rear shoulder belts, and others include "comfort guides," that route a belt to a more comfortable position.

 

Airbags Become Safer, Smarter

Once little more than quickly inflated pillows of gas, today's "smart airbags" react to passenger weight and impact conditions and deploy accordingly.

Airbags have been credited with saving an estimated 9325 lives through mid 2002, according to NHTSA. Some luxury cars now have as many as 10 airbags spread around the front, rear, and side of their interiors. Though they add to a car's overall crashworthiness, both manufacturers and safety advocates are quick to point out that airbags are designed to augment, not replace, seatbelt use. According to National Safety Council, the combination of seatbelts and airbags is 81 percent effective in preventing serious head injuries compared with a 60% reduction for belts alone.

Frontal airbags for the driver and passenger have been required by law in all new cars and trucks since 1999, though many vehicles offered one or both for at least a decade before the mandated deadline.

If sensors detect rapid deceleration, as in a frontal crash, a fabric cushion, installed in either the steering-wheel hub or the passenger's side of the dashboard inflates in about one-twentieth of a second. The cushion helps absorb the crash energy and prevent the occupant from hitting the dashboard and/or windshield. Contrary to how they're usually portrayed in movies and TV shows, deployed airbags deflate quickly to allow the driver to regain control of the car, if necessary.

Because of incidents in which early airbags caused fatal injuries in crashes, especially to shorter occupants, unbelted riders, and children (totaling 215 deaths in the U.S. through mid 2002), the latest generation of frontal airbags deploy with 20-to-35 percent less force than earlier versions. Still, as NHTSA-mandated warning stickers in all new vehicles point out, front-passenger airbags can cause fatal injuries in a crash to infants riding in rear-facing child seats.

While the obvious solution is to secure the child in the back seat, what if you don't have one? To that end, most pickup trucks and two-seat sport coupes now include an ignition key activated shutoff switch for the passenger-side airbag.

In addition, so-called "smart" frontal airbags on some vehicles are able to deploy at different degrees of force, depending on the severity of the crash and the weight of the occupant. Some vehicles come with suppression systems that prevent airbags from deploying if sensors detect a child in the front passenger seat. Such airbags will be required in all vehicles on a phased-in basis, beginning in 2004. Also, to help make airbags safer, several cars and trucks now offer adjustable accelerator and brake pedals in several of its vehicles that can be moved closer or farther away from the driver depending on his or her height. The adjustable pedals are particularly useful for shorter people, who otherwise must move the seat forward to reach the pedals, placing them close enough to the airbag for it to cause injuries in a collision.

Of course not all crashes occur head-on into another vehicle or a fixed object-side-impact crashes account for 30 percent of all collisions, and are the second-leading cause of death and injury to vehicle occupants. As a result, the government mandates that all new cars come equipped with some form of side-impact protection. This is generally accomplished by adding a metal beam and extra foam padding inside the door, though an increasing number of models now offer side-impact airbags for front passengers. These are either mounted on the doors or located within the front-passenger seats. A few of the costliest luxury cars include them for rear-seat passengers as well.

NHTSA warns that children who ride in a seat that's protected by a side-impact airbag may be at risk of serious or fatal injuries if the child's head, neck, or chest is in close proximity to the airbag when it deploys.

Some vehicles now include head-protection airbags, either in addition to or instead of door- or seat-mounted side airbags. These are configured in either a curtain or tubular design, which generally extend from near the bottom of a car's windshield pillar, all the way to the roof just above the rear door on each side of the vehicle. Ford Explorer and Expedition, Mercury Mountaineer, and Lincoln Aviator and Navigator offer an optional airbag canopy system that not only protects passengers in side impacts, but rollover incidents as well.

 

Active Safety Features

Side airbags (at shoulder) and inflatable head restraints are now offered in an increasing number of vehicles.  Some vehicles now come with side "curtain" airbags, full-length upper-body restraints that drop down from above the side windows in a side collision to protect front and rear passengers.

Airbags and seatbelts offer excellent protection in the event of an impact, but the best defense is avoiding an accident in the first place.

To help prevent drivers from having to rely on features like airbags to save their lives, a wide range of crash avoidance equipment is found on the typical passenger vehicle. This can range from features like daytime running lamps and automatic-dimming rearview mirrors that help improve visibility, to improved braking and suspension components designed to let the driver safely steer clear of trouble in the first place.

 

ABS ANTILOCK BRAKING SYSTEM

Originally developed and patented in Germany in 1936 for aircraft use, but only made widely available on passenger cars since the late 1980s, antilock braking systems (ABS) prevent a vehicle's wheels from locking up under hard braking, especially on slick road surfaces. Once a vehicle's brakes lock up, not only are its braking forces drastically reduced, but the driver can lose the ability to steer away from obstacles.

ABS works by engaging and disengaging the brakes rapidly whenever sophisticated computer-controlled sensors detect wheel slippage. This is similar to the time-honored technique of pumping the brake pedal to avoid skidding, only here the system can perform this task much faster and more precisely than is humanly possible.

ABS is available on virtually all cars and trucks sold in the U.S., and is well worth the extra expense when offered as optional equipment. Two basic types of antilock brakes are available: four- and rear-wheel ABS. Passenger cars and front-wheel-drive minivans use four-wheel systems exclusively, which, as the name implies, prevents the brakes from locking up at all four wheels. In addition to helping a car stop in a straight line, a vehicle equipped with four-wheel ABS also helps the driver keep control of the vehicle while steering around road hazards in extreme situations while applying the brakes.

A few pickups and sport-utility vehicles include rear-wheel ABS, though they may offer a four-wheel system as optional equipment. These types of systems are designed to prevent the back end of the vehicle from swinging out in a panic stop, which is one of the biggest problems with rear-drive trucks. You cannot, however, use a rear-wheel-only ABS system to help steer away from obstacles while braking; the front wheels can still lock up and cause the driver to lose control in such situations.

When ABS is working, you'll usually feel a vibration or pulsation through the brake pedal (you'll probably see a warning light flash on the vehicle's instrument panel). When this happens, you should keep your foot down on the brake pedal and not let up until the vehicle is stopped (or you've steered your way out of trouble, if you have four-wheel ABS). If you pump or let up on the brakes, you'll essentially defeat the system's effectiveness.

Stopping distances with ABS may not be any shorter, however, and on some types of surfaces may actually be longer.

 

Traction Control Systems

Essentially working in the reverse of ABS is traction control. This uses a car's ABS sensors to detect wheel slippage during acceleration and help the driver maintain control. It's available as either a standard or optional feature on a growing number of autos, minivans, and two-wheel-drive SUVs (often bundled with ABS). It is particularly worthwhile on rear-wheel-drive cars and trucks, which tend to lose traction more easily than front-drive cars on slippery surfaces.

Some traction-control systems work by automatically applying the vehicle's antilock brakes to a slipping wheel (or wheels) to improve low-speed traction on a slippery surface. Others use a combination of selected braking and engine intervention to maintain traction and stability at a wider range of speeds.

Most traction-control systems provide a switch for those rare occasions (such as driving at low speeds in deep snow) when traction control may prove to be more hindrance than help.

 

ESC electronic stability control

Even more advanced is a system called electronic stability control (ESC-it is also known by a host of proprietary names that vary by automaker). ESC controls lateral stability as well as longitudinal stability, which can prevent a car from "fishtailing" and correct extreme under- or oversteer in cornering situations. Most of the vehicles offering these systems are luxury cars, though ESC is becoming available in less-expensive vehicles. Here, a multitude of sensors keep track of the vehicle's speed, steering angle, brake pressure, lateral acceleration (how "hard" the vehicle is cornering), and yaw (the vehicle's rotation around its vertical axis). The system essentially recognizes whether or not the vehicle is operating according to the driver's intent, and takes action to avoid a loss of control. Brakes are precisely engaged at the appropriate wheel, and, in some systems, engine power is reduced to nudge the car back on course.

 

Emergency Brake Assist

Another recent advancement in accident avoidance is called emergency brake assist, though it's available mainly on luxury models. Here, sensors detect when the driv-er is in a panic-braking situation, and, since most drivers do not apply the brake hard enough under such conditions, the system automatically applies more pressure to reduce stopping distance.

 

Keeping Children Safe

Safe conditions for adults can be dangerous ones for kids. Good information is the best safety system when it comes to protecting children in cars.

Built-in child safety seats are offered on some cars and minivans.

Children under the age of 13 belong in the back seat and need to be securely buckled. Most kids under the age of nine should ride in a child safety seat or booster seat.

Passenger-side airbags are hazardous to children 12 and younger who are riding in the front seat-even if they are belted. These children are too small and fragile to be so close to a deploying airbag, which inflates at up to 200 miles per hour.

The risks are greatest for infants. Safety officials warn that a rear-facing child seat should never be used in the front seat of a vehicle with a passenger-side airbag unless the bag can be disabled.

Of the 215 deaths attributed to airbags, 131 were children riding in the front passenger seat. Twenty-two were in rear-facing child seats, and another 111 were unbelted or improperly belted.

Putting children under the age of 13 in the rear seat reduces the risk of injury in the most common type of accident-a frontal collision-because they will be further from the impact.

All 50 states and the District of Columbia require infants and toddlers to be in a child safety seat when riding in a car. However, many laws apply to children up to three or four years of age, and the cutoff ages vary widely. A few state laws apply specifically to children weighing 40 pounds or less.

The American Academy of Pediatrics says kids should not be restrained by a seatbelt alone until they are about nine years old. Safety experts recommend that children under 20 pounds (or up to one year old) ride in a rear-facing safety seat, and children 20 to 40 pounds (about ages one to four) should ride in a forward-facing safety seat. Kids from 40 to about 80 pounds (roughly ages four to eight), should ride in a booster seat.

Bigger children can ride in back without a special seat if the shoulder belt fits. If the belt rubs their neck or face, then a booster seat is recommended.

NHTSA estimates that 41 percent of children under the age of nine who die in crashes are not properly restrained. Child seats can reduce the death risk by 70 percent if correctly installed, yet NHTSA says as many as four out of five are improperly used.

A new universal child-seat attachment system required by NHTSA in all new vehicles makes it easier to install the seats properly. Previously, child-seat manufacturers devised their own mounting systems, some of which proved problematic for users. Now, they have to use a simpler standard system for securing the seats to the vehicle. Additionally, forward-facing child seats must now come with a tether strap that secures the back of the seat to the vehicle for better head protection.

Most car manufacturers have, or aim to, beat the federal deadline. Many also offer free or low-cost installation of attachment points on older models.

Safety experts recommend consulting the instructions from both the child-seat maker and the vehicle manufacturer to make sure you're installing the seat correctly. The owner's manual for new vehicles usually has ample information on installing child seats. The first step is to secure the seat so that it won't move excessively in a collision. The next step is to properly secure the child with the belts attached to the seat.

Yet NHTSA estimates that as many as 80 percent of all child seats are either incorrectly installed, or are the wrong seats for the children riding in them. To help parents ensure that their children are being properly restrained, NHTSA maintains an inspection locator as part of its Web site to help parents find safety-seat inspection locations. The locator includes a list of organizations and other entities that offer seat inspections, and is searchable by either zip code or state. In addition, automaker DaimlerChrysler is sponsoring a toll-free telephone hotline (1-866-SEAT-CHECK) that taps into NHTSA's online service.

Built-in child safety seats are a factory option on some vehicles, mainly minivans, though some manufacturers have dropped them because of low demand. This handy feature is integrated into the seatback and folds out when needed. Some automakers also offer approved child seats as accessories.

Inside Trunk-Release

In response to recent incidents of children inadvertently being locked in cargo areas, automakers now include inside trunk-release mechanisms in their cars to help them get out. Generally denoted by glow-in-the-dark markings, these mechanisms take little effort to engage. Some systems, such as the one included in the Chevrolet Impala and Monte Carlo use thermal detection to determine if someone is in the trunk; if so, it opens the trunk automatically.