In the last few days, the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) has announced the addition of a few new vehicles to its desirable Top Safety Pick list.
First came the new 2008 Ford Taurus and Mercury Sable. The Ford Five-Hundred and Mercury Montego had already been awarded the title in 2006 only to see it removed in 2007. The reason for this was that the criteria was now buttoned-down and included the availability of ESC. For 2008, Ford offers ESC as an option on the Taurus and Sable.The all-new Acura 2007 MDX is the latest addition to the list. The receive the honour, the MDX earned the highest rating of good in all three of the Institute tests -- front, side, and rear. The MDX also has the required electronic stability control (ESC).Here is an explanation of how these vehicles are evaluated. It is taken directly from the IIHS' website:
"The Institute's frontal crashworthiness evaluations are based on results of 40 mph frontal offset crash tests. Each vehicle's overall evaluation is based on measurements of intrusion into the occupant compartment, injury measures recorded on a Hybrid III dummy in the driver seat, and analysis of slow-motion film to assess how well the restraint system controlled dummy movement during the test."For more information on Top Safety Picks or the IIHS, follow this link:
http://www.iihs.org/ photo: Honda, Ford