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Like the exploding fuel tanks in Ford’s Pinto and the Ford Explorer rollover controversies of yesteryear, Toyota’s recall of Two.Three million vehicles for what they call a gas pedal defect has accelerated America’s attention on auto safety.
Drawing from research conducted by Consumer Reports and the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, as well as from interviews with auto safety experts such as Kelley Blue Book’s executive editorial director Jack Nerad, ABCNews.com has compiled its own roundup of the safest car choices for drivers of all stripes.
Sparing No Expense: Volvo S80
If enlargening the odds of surviving a head-on collision — the most common type of fatal traffic accident — is a car buyer’s paramount concern, then basic laws of physics trump fancy safety features. In other words, size matters.
“The single most significant contributor to a vehicle’s crash survivability is its mass,” said Russ Rader, a spokesman for the Arlington, Va.-based Insurance Institute, which conducts ongoing crash tests on one hundred fifty vehicles.
SUVs and pickup trucks are weighty by nature, but at the same time, they take longer to stop and are more susceptible to rollovers, another leading type of traffic fatality.
So focusing on sedans, sparing no expense and taking into consideration its storied history as a leader in safety innovation, Volvo races to mind when evaluating safe cars, most experts agree. The Volvo S80 ranked among the four safest “large” cars that were collision-tested by the Insurance Institute. Nerad, who has been writing about auto safety for more than a decade, conceded that as his junior children now treatment driving age he has been providing this issue a lot of extra thought lately. He is leaning toward Volvo.
“Volvo walks the talk on safety,” Nerad said. “Being on the cutting edge is part of their culture.”
Considering size and design durability, plus overlaying all of the advanced technological features Volvo drivers have come to expect, such as automatic driver alerts helping to mitigate everything from lane drift to blind catches sight of, the Volvo S80 has to be considered a standard bearer in the drive toward safest car ever built.
Taut Budget: Subaru Impreza Outback Sport
In a flawless world, even the most affordable cars would be as safe as any big car on the road, and experts agree the comparative differences are, as the years go by, kicking off to diminish. In a harsh economy, however, many car buyers are coerced to weigh price alongside or even above safety, which is why the Subaru Impreza Outback Sport takes the pole position in the lower-cost bracket.
With some versions priced under $20,000, and as one of only two vehicles to turn up on both the Consumer Reports and IIHS safest cars lists, the Impreza is, well, awesome, pointed out Mike Quincy, an automotive analyst at the Consumer Reports test center. “It’s a puny wagon, has very reliable brakes, electronic stability control, all-wheel drive; it just treats well,” Quincy said.
Very first Among the Fuel Efficient: Honda Civic
The hybrid Toyota Prius predominates the most-miles-to-the-gallon milieu and has no proven unexpected acceleration problems, (albeit Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak claims that his Prius has a software-related cruise-control defect.) But the Prius does not turn up among the two dozen or so two thousand ten models that most protected the Insurance Institute’s crash test dummies.
The next best thing? “You couldn’t go wrong with the Honda Civic,” said Nerad, acknowledging that among the institute’s top-ranked puny cars, the Civic carries the day from a traditional fuel efficiency standpoint. To make the IIHS ranking, a car had to have the highest of four possible ratings (“good” as opposed to “acceptable,” “marginal” or “poor”) in all four crash tests (front, rear, side, rollover) and also have electronic stability control features (which are increasingly common in all types of vehicles, if not yet ubiquitous.)
Something for the City Folk: Volvo XC60
No one ever got T-boned railing the subway, albeit some urban dwellers still want their wheels. For city driving, the edge goes to the Volvo XC60. It’s the only car on the road today to feature automatic braking. “In stop and go situations, if the person ahead of you stops abruptly, the Volvo XC60 will stop automatically if the driver doesn’t hit the brake rapid enough,” said Nerad. “Typically, Volvo has this type of advanced capability.” Still, this model wasn’t as maneuverable as some others tested, said Quincy.
Country Roads: Ford F150
Leave behind fuel efficiency and rollover concerns — some people, particularly farmers and other rural residents (not to mention Massachusetts’ fresh Senator-elect Scott Brown) simply won’t drive anything other than a pickup truck. The one model that experts at Consumer Reports, Kelley and the Insurance Institute all agree on is the Ford F150, which scored high in rollover survivability tests, is tops. “Good brakes,” Quincy added.
Caveats and Honorable Mentions
Quincy, like other automotive experts, stressed the difficulty of attempting to pick the singularly safest cars, pointing to the growing parity among automakers in technological innovations. He suggested numerous other candidates for car buyers to consider, while also taking issue with the presumption that Volvo has cornered the market on superior safety. “There are slew of car companies that have just as much or more safety equipment than Volvo,” Quincy said.
Among the other vehicles Quincy viewed as among the safest, across categories and in no particular order: Audi A6, Acura RL, Volkswagon Golf, and three pickup trucks, the Toyota Tundra, Toyota Tacoma and the Honda Ridgeline.