Cars
Crash Course
When it comes to protecting you, not all vehicles are created equal.
By Mark Solheim, Senior Editor
From Kiplinger's Personal Finance magazine, March 2004
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Martha Gay moonlights as a stand-up comedian. But no one was laughing the night a Nissan Pathfinder plowed into her 1996 Volvo 850. Gay was driving home on a clear, moonlit January evening last year when the Pathfinder made a left turn and hit the driver's side of her car -- with such force that the Volvo was hurled airborne and landed with all four wheels on a sidewalk. The front airbag deployed, and the violence of the collision twisted the frame of the car, popped open the moon roof and cracked the windshield.
Gay walked away from the wreck. "If I hadn't been in a Volvo, I'd be dead," declares the 46-year-old, whose day job is president of a Philadelphia executive-search firm. "The car did exactly what it was supposed to do." A week later, she was back at the Volvo dealership to buy a new S60 sedan. "I used to complain when the car went into the shop, but then the thing saved my life, and I'm, like, 'Baby, I love you.' "
That the seven-year-old Volvo protected Gay is a tribute to the carmaker's reputation for safety. Its sedans and XC90 SUV (see below) consistently earn top marks in government and independent crash tests. And Volvo offers as standard equipment such safety features as side and head-protection airbags, anti-lock brakes, whiplash-protection seats and traction control, even on its low-end S40 sedan.
Not to be morbid, but you should keep Gay's experience in mind the next time you shop for a car. Unfortunately, you're mostly on your own trying to determine which cars are the safest. The government mandates certain standards -- think front airbags and seat belts. But the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, which is responsible for regulating auto safety, prefers consumer education and voluntary initiatives to imposing regulations in order to persuade carmakers to improve vehicle safety. So vehicles that don't protect you in crashes and lack advanced safety equipment are plentiful, especially among lower-priced cars.
At the same time, many manufacturers are doing a good job of making their cars safe, designing them to get top marks in crash tests from NHTSA (www.nhtsa.gov), as well as from the insurance-industry-funded Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (www.iihs.org). For instance, many manufacturers equip cars with airbags that not only protect you in frontal crashes, but also protect your torso and head in side crashes. They build in advanced technology, such as electronic stability control, and tweak seat-belt and seat design to keep you safely in place should the worst happen.
With those factors in mind, Kiplinger's evaluated hundreds of 2004 models to come up with five vehicles -- three sedans, a minivan and an SUV -- that go to the head of the safety class. The vehicles, which are spotlighted at the end of this article, all earn good crash-test scores and have low injury-loss claims, according to the Highway Loss Data Institute. If you're looking for a safe set of wheels, consider these the gold standard (for more examples of super-safe models, see "Really Safe Cars").
You're vulnerable
More-crashworthy designs, mandatory front-passenger airbags and increased seat-belt use are reducing deaths and serious injury caused by auto wrecks. Still, the fatality rate from crashes -- about 42,000 a year -- has stayed stubbornly steady since 1998, according to IIHS. Frontal crashes are still the leading cause of death, accounting for 50% of driver and passenger fatalities, but side-impact crashes are gaining: They now account for about 30% of car-related deaths each year.
The reason: There are an increasing number of light trucks colliding with sedans, just like Martha Gay's death-defying crash with the Pathfinder. The extra weight and height of light trucks -- a category that includes SUVs, minivans and pickups -- are responsible for nightmarish crashes that smash sedans but often leave the truck drivers unscathed.
Ironically, to protect themselves, some drivers are switching to heavy, high-riding vehicles. The structure of many trucks is not only more rigid but also set higher than sedans, so a truck hits a particularly vulnerable part of the car. The heavier weight of trucks also makes such a crash more deadly. In fact, an occupant in a sedan is twice as likely to be killed in a side-impact crash if the other vehicle is an SUV than if it's another sedan.
Safe vehicle anatomy
Volvo isn't the only carmaker that earns high marks for safety. European manufacturers as a group lead the safety parade, both for good crash-test scores and features such as head-protection airbags and electronic stability control. Honda, Toyota and Nissan vehicles tend to do well in crash tests, but unless you're buying their luxury nameplates, you usually have to pay extra for safety options such as side airbags. Many big Detroit sedans and light trucks earn good crash-test marks, but Motor City has been slow to make newer safety technology available.
If you put a premium on safety, look for the following features and walk away from cars that don't have them.
Top crash-test scores. The most important measure of a safe car is how well its structure protects you and your passengers in a crash, so start your research with vehicles that earn the best scores.
NHTSA -- which conducts full-frontal and side-impact crash tests, as well as a rollover test -- uses a star system to rate safety. A vehicle receives the top, five-star rating if the tests suggest that there is a 10% or less chance that passengers would suffer serious injury in a comparable real-world wreck. The worst ranking, a single star, suggests that there is a 46% chance or greater of serious injury. (Last year, only the Cadillac DeVille earned a single star on the frontal crash test. On the side-impact crash, the Chevy Cavalier, Pontiac Sunfire and Ford ZX2 were the only lone-star cars.) IIHS, which simulates an "offset" frontal crash and a side-impact crash, gives ratings of good, acceptable, marginal or poor. The ratings are broken down by vehicle structure and the potential for injury to the head, neck, torso and lower body. The top performers get a "best pick" designation. (For more details about crash tests, see the box above.)
Stephen Kratzke, associate administrator for safety performance standards at NHTSA, says he would consider frontal-crash scores first, and aim for four or five stars. (If the vehicle also has an IIHS "best pick" or overall "good" rating, that's even better.) For cars, he'd concentrate on side-impact protection next: look for at least four stars. For SUVs, look at the rollover rating second -- aim for four stars, and accept no fewer than three.
Crash-test scores are designed to compare vehicles of similar weight. So, for example, the 2,500-pound Mini Cooper may not fare well in a head-on crash with the 4,600-pound Volvo XC90 SUV. The laws of physics make larger and heavier vehicles generally safer in a crash than smaller, lighter ones. You can find crash-test scores at www.nhtsa.gov and www.iihs.org.
Good restraint system. During a frontal crash, any slack in the seat-belt webbing can allow you to lurch forward, often into a rapidly exploding airbag. But seat-belt pretensioners fire -- literally, with a small explosion -- in a crash to remove the slack and hold you in your seat better. All of the vehicles featured here have seat-belt pretensioners, and they're becoming more common as standard equipment.
The government requires head restraints to prevent whiplash in a rear-end collision, but many restraints are poorly designed and can't be adjusted to the proper position -- high and close to the back of the head. You can find IIHS restraint ratings at www.iihs.org.
Side head protection. Side airbags that include head protection are reducing deaths by about 45% among drivers of sedans struck on the driver's side, according to the IIHS. Side airbags that protect only the torso aren't nearly as effective. Head-protection airbags in SUVs are also crucial, in case of rollover. Among 2003 model-year cars, 40% of passenger vehicles offered head-protecting side airbags, and they were standard equipment in about one-fourth of all models. You'll find a list of vehicles with side and head airbags at www.iihs.org.
Electronic stability control. ESC shows promise as a way to help prevent crashes, says Brian O'Neill, president of the IIHS. ESC helps a driver maintain control during extreme steering maneuvers, such as crash avoidance, by using automatic braking of individual wheels to keep the vehicle headed in the driver's intended direction.
ESC, which goes by a slew of different names -- such as Cadillac's Stabilitrak and Toyota's Vehicle Stability Control -- is even more important on a tippy SUV than on a sedan. Rollover isn't much of a problem for a sedan. But an SUV's high center of gravity makes it more prone to roll over. Because ESC helps keep SUVs on the road, ESC helps avoid rollovers that might otherwise occur when a vehicle hits a soft shoulder or curb.
Right now, ESC is standard equipment primarily on European luxury vehicles, such as BMWs, Jaguars and Mercedes, and a few U.S. and Japanese luxury vehicles, such as the Cadillac SRX and Acura TL.
Other safety features. Consider automatic-dimming rearview mirrors, daytime running lights and an emergency notification system, such as GM's OnStar. Anti-lock brakes can't hurt, but they haven't translated into a significant reduction in deaths. A case can be made for all-wheel drive as a safety feature, but traction control, which adjusts the wheels to prevent slipping, is less about safety than about performance. In fact, IIHS's O'Neill calls traction control an "anti-safety" feature because it enables you to drive on icy road surfaces that might otherwise be impassable.
--Reporter: Jay Marcus
THE GOLD STANDARD
Mercedes-Benz E Class sedan
NHTSA frontal crash: 
NHTSA side crash:
IIHS frontal crash: Best Pick
Weight: 3,635 pounds
Sticker price (E320): $50,670
Mercedes doesn't skimp on safety. On the E320 all-wheel-drive model, standard equipment includes "brake assist," a technology that automatically applies full braking if you take your foot off the accelerator quickly and then hesitate to push the brake pedal down all the way, as most drivers do. It also has side and curtain airbags for the front and rear, traction control, stability control and daytime running lights. A tire-pressure monitoring system is a $390 option.
Mini Cooper
NHTSA frontal crash:
NHTSA side crash:
IIHS frontal crash: Best Pick
Weight: 2,524 pounds
Sticker price: $16,999
The Mini doesn't look like one of the safest small cars on the road, but it's packed with safety features: four-wheel anti-lock brakes, front side airbags, front and rear head-protection airbags, "corner brake control" (which provides even braking for all the wheels to maintain stability) and a crash-sensor system that, after an accident, will unlock the doors, turn on the hazard lights and cut off the fuel pump if the airbag has deployed. Electronic stability control is available as a $500 option.
Volkswagen Passat sedan
NHTSA frontal crash:
NHTSA side crash:
IIHS frontal crash: Best Pick
Weight: 3,241 pounds
Sticker price (GL): $22,355
VWs are all solid performers in crash tests. The base-model Passat GL provides such standard equipment as four-wheel anti-lock brakes, front side-impact airbags, front and rear curtain airbags, traction control, a steering wheel that collapses in a crash, and daytime running lights. Electronic stability control is available as a $280 option.
Ford Freestar minivan
NHTSA frontal crash:
NHTSA side crash: Under review
IIHS frontal crash: Best Pick
Weight: 4,275 pounds
Sticker price (SES): $28,750
Ford's newly redesigned minivan gets top crash-test scores and, if you start with the mid-level SES model, you can configure it with state-of-the-art safety equipment. Four-wheel anti-lock brake system and seat-belt pretensioners are standard. For $730 you can get traction control and electronic stability control. Side and curtain airbags cost another $695.
Volvo XC90 SUV
NHTSA frontal crash:
NHTSA side crash:
IIHS frontal crash: Best Pick
Weight: 4,638 pounds
Sticker price (2.5-L turbo): $35,475
NHTSA hasn't put the XC90 through its rollover test yet, but with a relatively low center of gravity and Volvo's rollover protection system -- which triggers the vehicle's stability control if it senses imminent tipping -- the XC90 should do well. Volvo's SUV also meets the sedan-impact-compatibility standard that carmakers have pledged to meet within the next six years. Also standard are front and side airbags and front and rear curtain airbags; a whiplash-protection seating system; a steel-reinforced passenger compartment; traction control; and daytime running lights.