NHTSA Improves 5-Star Safety Rating Program for 2011 Model Vehicles

September 10, 2010

Vehicle safety is an aspect that many buyers deeply consider when purchasing a new car. For the past 30 years, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s (NHTSA) standard safety ratings have been forefront in determining the safety of US consumer vehicles.

On July 29, 2010, the NHTSA announced that it would rate 55 2011 model year vehicles with its new and improved 5-star safety ratings program. Among these vehicles are 24 passenger cars, 20 sport utility vehicles, two vans and nine pickups, including Chevrolet Cruze, Ford Fiesta, BMW 5-Series, Jeep Grand Cherokee, Honda Odyssey and Toyota’s Camry, Corolla and Prius.

The new program holds stricter criteria on vehicles, making it more difficult for vehicles to achieve higher ratings. Testing includes tougher crash tests with the addition of pole tests and smaller, female-sized crash dummies, which will help female drivers to better understand their risk for these cars. Moreover the vehicle reports will provide consumers with information regarding crash avoidance technologies, such as collision warning and lane departure systems.

Vehicles will also receive a single safety score so that consumers may easily compare and contrast vehicles in accordance with their NHTSA safety rank as well as for both survivability and crash avoidance. The NHTSA warns that consumers will not be able to compare these new numbers to previous years because of the new testing criteria. The new ratings will be posted on the organization’s website SafeCar this September.

Additionally, the NHTSA also provides consumers with information on any existing product defects and recalls for any and all vehicles, including child seat defects. Consumers are encouraged to learn more about their vehicles as well as report any problems encountered.

Alyse Speyer
AskPatty Contributor

Alyse Speyer has been an independent Internet marketing consultant for the past four years. She has a wealth of experience in content creation and management, social media marketing, brand positioning, SEO, SEM, email marketing and web strategy. Clients include: The Cobalt Group, Online Marketing Summit, AskPatty, Sipe & Associates, LLC. Connect with Alyse via Facebook and LinkedIn.