3 On Your Side: Top 2012 Vehicle Safety Picks
By Jim Donovan
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) - Are you in the market for a new car? Well a new list of the safest vehicles is out. As 3 On Your Side consumer reporter Jim Donovan tells us, it includes a record number of choices for drivers from SUVs to hybrids.
According to the auto experts at Edmunds.com, December will be the busiest month of this year when it comes to car sales. In fact in the past five years the month of December has ranked as number one or two when it comes to buying a car. Now the question becomes which vehicles are the safest?
The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, an insurance industry financed research group, has released its top 2012 safety picks.
For the first time, the bestselling Toyota Camry and Honda Accord are among the 115 winners. Adrian Lund, President of The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety says, "The Accord and Camry are vehicles families choose to take kids around. It shows you can have a good, safe car for that purpose."
The Top Safety Pick Award recognizes vehicles that do the best job of protecting passengers in a variety of crashes: from the front, side, and rear as well as in rollovers.
Every big manufacturer has at least one vehicle on the list, but Subaru is the only automaker that has a winner in every model it builds. Toyota, which includes its Lexus and Scion brands has 15 winners. General Motors is next with 14 top safety picks, followed by Volkswagen/Audi with 13. Ford/Lincoln and Honda/Acura have 12 awards each.
Several large pickup trucks are also included but not one small pickup was considered safe enough to make the cut.
One of the biggest reasons there are so many models on the new list is that their roofs are stronger. Car companies are redesigning vehicles to better withstand rollovers.
To check out the full list of 115 cars, trucks and SUV's that were rated as Top Safety Picks by The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety visit:
http://www.iihs.org/news/rss/pr121511.html#list
For advice on buying a car from Edmunds visit:
http://www.edmunds.com/tmv-alerts.html
http://www.edmunds.com/car-buying/quick-guide-to-buying-a-new-car.html
