iStock/Thinkstock(NEW YORK) — One in five vehicles earned top ratings in the Insurance Institute of Highway Safety’s tests, the organization announced Thursday.
IIHS evaluates “crashworthiness” (how well a car protects its occupants during a collision) as well as “crash avoidance and mitigation” (features like automatic breaking and lane assist that can help avoid crashes all together) and headlight performance.
“It’s good that people can walk away from a crash without life-threatening injuries; it’s even better if the crash doesn’t happen in the first place,” IIHS president Adrian Lund said in a video released by the organization.
Thirty-eight of the 190 cars IIHS tested earned “top safety pick plus” ratings. To see your car’s rating, click here.
IIHS — best known for its dramatic crash tests — says the rating system is meant to “encourage manufacturers to offer state-of-the-art protection for people in crashes” as well as other safety technology. The headlight criteria was a new addition this year.
“We’re raising the safety bar again by requiring good or acceptable headlight performance in order to earn our top safety pick plus award,” Lund said. “We launched headlight ratings in the spring after finding that government standards based on laboratory testing allow huge variation in the amount of illumination that headlights put on the road.”
In March of this year, IIHS sounded the alarm about headlight performance in the U.S., calling the results “dismal.” At that time, only one of 31 cars it had tested received a “good” rating.
On Thursday, IIHS says automakers have been “focusing on improving this basic safety equipment,” and it believes the “top safety pick plus” list will continue to expand.
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