New 5-Star Safety Ratings Announced
In a press release today, the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration(NHTSA) announced new 5-star vehicle safety ratings and are upgrading the standards for their rollover and crash tests.
Under the improvements to the five-star safety rating program, vehicles beginning with model year 2010 will for the first time be given an overall safety rating that combines results from frontal, side and rollover tests.
The upgraded system also will include new frontal crash tests, and a new side pole test to simulate wrapping a vehicle around a tree, the Secretary said. She said female crash dummies will be added to the tests, so women and larger children are represented, and that new testing for leg injuries will be done.
According to the NHTSA report, 98% of vehicles received the one of the top two ratings in 2008. In 1979, the first year the testing started, fewer than 30% of the tested vehicles reached that criteria.
The safety program has made great strides in it’s 30 year history and in January of 2007 started a program to enhance the current safety standards. A major criticism of the old rating system was that too many vehicles were receiving the highest ratings which gave auto makers little incentive to make continuos expensive safety improvements.
When purchasing auto insurance, companies will usually offer discounts for driving safer vehicles as opposed to a sports car for instance. It remains to be seen how the new standards will impact auto insurance premiums with supposedly less vehicles able to gain the highest ratings.
