The following feature was first published in the online journal Caza.
Vehicle safety is not something that most people give much thought when making a buy. Understanding the safety of your vehicle is very important; it will help you save money or even lives. Truth is there are cars which offer more safety for the driver and passengers than others.
There are various ways of evaluating a vehicle’s safety before buying it and contrary to common belief; the most expensive or big vehicles are not usually the safest on the roads.
Crash Tests
Before being released to the market all cars undergo crash tests to help determine how they would fare in an accident. Since this information is available online for every car; it’s important for a buyer to check the vehicle’s safety ratings and how it fared on crash tests.
Knowing a used car’s safety ratings will help you narrow down your search when buying a used car.
Crash Avoidance System
Over the years new technology has been introduced to prevent crashes and accidents on the road. Some of these features include: anti-lock braking system, electronic stability control, reverse back up sensors, auto brake, lane departure warning, and lane departure prevention, among others.
Crashworthiness
This is the ability of a vehicle to prevent injuries to the occupants in the occurrence of an accident. A crashworthy vehicle is designed to; reduce the risk of fire, prevent injection from the vehicle and minimize impact or injuries to the occupants in case of a crash.
Crashworthiness features include; seatbelts, airbags (front and sides), crumple zone and so forth.
Safest Cars in Kenya
This list is in no particular order.
Subaru Tribeca
The main safety features on Subaru Tribeca include curtain side airbags for front and second row, roll sensor system which senses a potential rollover and deploys the side curtain airbags.
Mitsubishi Outlander
Outlander’s main safety featured is: ESC, Passenger airbag occupant-sensing deactivation, driver and passenger head restraints that reduce neck injury.
Subaru Forester
The car has seat-position sensor which determine how close the driver is seated to the airbag therefore being able to deploy the airbag at the right time, front-seat side-impact airbags for thorax-area protection.
Toyota Yaris
The security features include; Driver Air Bag, Passenger Air Bag On/Off Switch, Passenger Air Bags, Side Head Air Bag, Side Air Bag, 4-Wheel ABS, Front Disc/Rear Drum Brakes
Nissan Murano
Main safety features include: Auto-dimming rear-view mirrors, electronic stability control, side airbag–front, head airbag–front, rear seat head restraint, dynamic head restraint, trunk release, auto crash notify, tire pressure monitor.
Honda CR-V
The main safety features in Honda CR-V include: electronic stability control, side airbag–front, head airbag–front, rear seat head restraint, dynamic head restraint, trunk release, tire pressure monitor.
Subaru Impreza
This car has an optional electronic stability control, anti-lock brakes (front disc/rear drum brakes are standard; 4-wheel discs are part of the Premium package) as well as front airbags, front-seat-mounted side airbags, and two-row side curtain airbags.
The safest cars may not be the cheapest but you can’t put a price on safety or your life. Take your time and research on the safety of any vehicle you want to buy. It’s better to pay more and be assured of safety.