Volvo Car Group’s position at the pinnacle of car safety is again highlighted with the U.S. Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) introducing a new test programme that rates the performance of front crash prevention systems. Both the Volvo S60 and XC60 get the highest possible rating ‘Superior’ – and Volvo Cars’ City Safety is the only standard fitment low-speed crash prevention system in the test, which included 74 vehicles. The IIHS’ new crash prevention evaluation will be incorporated into the institute’s 2014 Top Safety Pick+ rating. It includes two tests addressing front-to-rear crashes, one at 20 km/h (12 mph) and the other at 40 km/h (25 mph). An additional point is given to vehicles with Forward Collision Warning. The Volvo S60 and XC60 equipped with City Safety and Collision Warning with Full Auto Brake and Pedestrian Detection are among seven models that get a ‘Superior’ rating in the new test.
City Safety standard in all Volvo models
The low-speed City Safety system is standard in all new Volvo models on all markets. Most Volvo models are also available with state-of-the-art technologies that detect, warn and brake automatically for rear end of vehicles as well as moving pedestrians and cyclists in higher speeds. So far, Volvo Cars has sold more than one million cars equipped with systems for automatic braking – and the company will continue this pioneering work in the near future by making detection systems work also in darkness for pedestrians and by introducing collision mitigation for animals.
Auto brake results in fewer accidents
The benefits of the groundbreaking City Safety technology has been documented in an earlier IIHS/HLDI (Highway Loss Data Institute) report stating a reduction of the collision claim frequency with up to 20 per cent. Data from Swedish insurer If show similar figures with frontal collisions in car following situations being reduced with 23 per cent. The IIHS study of insurance claims involving a Volvo XC60 shows that City Safety reduces the costs for bodily injury liability with 33 per cent – while property damage liability was lowered by 15 per cent.
