According to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, 33,808 people died in motor vehicle crashes in 2009. While that’s the lowest figure since 1975 (when IIHS first started tracking fatalities in crashes), it's estimated that car accidents cost us about 200 billion dollars annually. The major driver behaviors contributing to accidents are alcohol, speeding and lack of seat belt use.
NHTSA research shows that the major causes of injury inside a vehicle during a collision are, in descending order: the steering wheel, the instrument panel, the doors, the windshield, the front roof pillar, the glove compartment area, the roof edges and the roof itself. It’s not surprising then that front-seat passengers are more likely to be injured than rear-seat passengers, who are protected by the padding of the front seat backs and positioned farther away from the front bumper, the most statistically probable impact point. NHTSA data has also shown that as many as 51% of deaths occur in head-on impacts, 27% in side impacts and only 4% in rear impacts. Rollovers are particularly lethal because they are more likely to eject unrestrained passengers from the car than other types of collisions. In addition, fatality rates are 25 times higher for ejected passengers than for those who remain in the car.
The objectives of safety features are to 1) keep the occupants inside the vehicle; 2) keep them from banging around inside; 3) absorb some of the forces of impact rather than transfer them to the occupants; 4) help prevent a collision from happening in the first place.
NHTSA's book of Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards and Regulations is chock-a-block with good intentions. Nowadays, important mandated safety features - including center-high-mounted brake lights and air bags for both the driver and front-seat passenger - are standard on all cars. However, other safety features - anti-lock brakes, for example - aren’t required by law and are available at the automaker’s discretion. In other words, there is still plenty of variation in the safety features of newer models despite all the rules and regulations. NHTSA will continue to advocate safety equipment being made standard. In recent years, new required safety features include advanced air bags, LATCH child safety seat anchors and tire pressure monitoring systems. Electronic stability control will be standard on all cars by 2012, and the Department of Transportation is also trying to ensure that by 2014 rearview cameras will be standard on all vehicles.
