Volvo has always ensured to pack the best of features underneath its hood in the latest vehicles. While many automakers fail to comply with optimum safety standards even in their best of automobiles, Volvo is nowhere on the list of 'Unsafe Car Brands.' In fact, the Swedish automaker emphasizes the safety of its vehicle and invests a huge chunk of its revenue in the R&D to improve its vehicles' safety.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's (NHTSA) New Car Assessment Program for 2021 awarded eleven Volvo cars with a five-star rating. These are the highest possible safety ratings a vehicle can attain, and it is the highest number of cars by a single company to have a five-star rating.
The previous years have been fruitful for Volvo, with many of its newest cars receiving the highest ratings in terms of safety standards. Here is why Volvo can be, without a doubt, termed as the 'Safest Car Brand Of 2021'.
Volvo Vehicles' Safety Innovations
Volvos' concern for passenger safety has a long history, and the Swedish automobile giant has contributed much to vehicle safety innovation that makes road accidents less life-threatening. Interestingly, this feat of Volvo comes from prolonged and prolific research and development in passenger safety.
Starting from 1959, Volvo kept adding one after another safety feature that made Volvo cars safer and inspired other automakers to adopt the same. Volvo invented seat belts common in every vehicle in 1959, but that's not all. In 1972 Volvo presented a 'Rearward-Facing Child Seat' and a 'Side Impact Protection System' in 1991. Moving further, Volvo added Side Impact Protection System, Whiplash Protection System, Inflatable Curtain, Roll Stability Control, Pedestrian Detection with Full Auto Brake, and Run-off Road Protection to their list of innovative safety features.
Every new Volvo car is equipped with conventional safety features together with some advanced ones. These are some of the essential features that can be seen in most Volvo automobiles that ensure the safe travel of the passengers.
The Anti-Lock Braking System And Stability Control
The Anti-Lock Braking or ABS is an anti-skid braking system that uses threshold braking and cadence braking principles. It prevents the wheels from locking during extreme braking, thereby maintaining the traction, thus allowing the driver to maintain more control over the vehicle by increasing the ability to turn while braking. Every Volvo vehicle is equipped with reliable ABS that Volvo engineers thoroughly test.
This system is associated with engine power and brakes. It automatically detects the event of exceeding vehicle handling limits and proactively reduces the engine power or applies brakes judiciously to prevent the vehicle from going out of control.
The Airbags, Pretensioners, And Anti-Whiplash
The cars by Volvo are all equipped with airbags that cover passengers from all four sides during a crash and are designed and placed in accordance with the practical collision situations on the road. The front-impact airbags protect the rider's head during an impact from the front side, whereas the side-impact airbags protect passengers' torso in the event of impact from the sides. Further, there are overhead airbags to protect passengers' heads in case there is a rollover following the collision. The vehicles are also equipped with knee airbags to protect passengers' lower extremities in the event of an accident.
This is one of the most innovative features for the passengers' safety that Volvo offers. Pretentioners is a mechanism that automatically tightens the seat belts to keep the passenger in the safest seating position during an accident. This helps avoid a lot of movement when met with an accident and avoids any unnecessary injury that may be caused by moving.
Whiplash is a type of injury that takes place due to forceful, rapid back-and-forth movement of the neck. The nature of the injury is most likely to occur in case of a high-speed collision. Volvo cars are equipped with an Anti-Whiplash system associated with the seat itself that provides the seat with a semi-cradling ability. This ability suppresses the force of impact on passengers' neck region.
Volvos' Crash Scene Investigators
Volvos' safety features are pretty realistic and effective in practical situations because these are designed by taking ideas from real-life events. Like the air crash investigation, Volvo has a team of their Crash Scene Investigators who appear at a crash scene involving a Volvo car and assess what went wrong.
The team then gets back to the Volvo engineers with their observations, and engineers note errors and further improvise their safety features. This team has been in existence for the last fifty years and has led to many worthy innovations in Volvo's safety standards. Officially they are known as 'Volvo Car Accident Research Team'.
Operational since 1970, this team checks every Volvo accident in and around Gothenburg, Sweden. They record a detailed observation of the crash, including the force of impact, speed during impact, the intervention of active safety systems, passenger condition the following impact, driver's statement, and lastly, they thoroughly examine the car. In case of accidents occurring outside Sweden, the team takes the help of Volvo officials nearby the crash site and assesses probable causes.
Volvos' title of being the safest automaker is a result of the automaker's stance of keeping passenger safety as the top priority. In the current NHTSA evaluation, the eleven Volvo cars that underwent frontal, side, and rollover crash testing all came out with flying colors. With its rigorous efforts to make automobiles one of the safest modes of transport, we can surely expect to see some excruciating safety technology from Volvo in the near future.