2005 Safety Report Card

Not all injuries are stark life and death situations; some are just pervasive and expensive, Lund said. Each year $8.5 billion is spent on auto injuries. Of that figure, 25 percent is spent on neck sprains and another 25 percent on back sprains. In 1995 IIHS began lab testing neck restraint systems in vehicles. "Automakers didn't listen to us until we started taking measurements and naming names," he said.

Challenges Ahead
Getting the head restraints at the proper height to protect an occupant led to adjustable head restraints and better seat designs, which "deform" in an accident so the seat does not push so hard on the occupant's back. There are now "active" head restraints on the market, which raise the head restraint when the seat moves during a crash incident. Saab designs were rated very effective by IIHS. Not all active systems work as well as they should. IIHS gave only eight good ratings to the systems they tested. Good systems included all Volvo models with the whiplash prevention system, WHIPS, Saab 9-2X and 9-3, Jaguar S-Type, Subaru Impreza and certain Volkswagen New Beetles. Toyota Corolla got an overall good rating with a markdown for where the head restraint meets the passenger's head.


Where are the challenges on the safety horizon? Lund sees a shift to urban crashes since more miles are driven on urban roads. Cutting fatalities in city driving depends on changing highway design as well as using technology to monitor urban drivers.


Red light cameras, which give motorists the grumbles, cut red-light running by 32 percent and cut severe right-angle crashes by 68 percent. Red-light running accounts for 27 percent of all urban crashes along with stop-sign running. There is a resulting slight increase in rear-end crashes, but those kinds of crashes are much less severe.

The Roundabout
The Institute would like to take drivers to the roundabout school of driving. Roundabouts are circles where there are no lights and the traffic pattern is a constant merge in and out of the circle. The roundabout forces a reduction in speed with a commensurate lowering of the crash risk. (Roundabouts have 40 percent fewer crashes and 80 percent fewer injuries.) Less fuel is consumed since there is no stop-and-go driving; they are cheaper to maintain and traffic moves faster. Vail, Colorado converted all of their traffic signal intersections to roundabouts to handle the heavy weekend ski traffic and they are experiencing quicker, safer traffic movement. Roundabouts are not the answer for every traffic intersection, but IIHS would like to see more of them because, "it takes a very complex intersection and makes it simple."