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W ASHINGTON From its headquarters here, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration writes the rules and regulations governing automobile safety.
But safety standards in the automotive market today are actually being developed in an office building in force on the Potomac River in Arlington, Virginia and on a campus in the rural village of Ruckersville, Va about two hours away.
These are the twin operational bases of the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, the non-profit organization funded by the insurance company that has developed an inordinate influence on the progress of the safety of vehicles, speeding up the pace improvements in impact resistance and aggressive driving the adoption of accident prevention technology, while federal regulators are playing catch-up.
crash tests the IIHS in many ways beyond s required by the federal government and automakers have responded to the results by providing important technical changes at a rapid clip access IIHS to claim ownership data insurance can see the greatest unmet needs in any car safety and technology solutions to solve and Top safety Pick and group Top safety Pick braces have become essential for automakers.
Essentially, what they are doing to put the bar becomes the de facto standard, said Sean Kane, security researcher and president of security research strategies in Rehoboth, Mass, it becomes the standard in the absence of any regulation .
Ryan Beene is a reporter for Automotive News It covers Volkswagen, Audi, automotive safety and government regulation is based in Washington D C.
This standard continues to evolve as a private group with access to rich data and brand rating system that's regularly cited in marketing materials, IIHS can move quickly to encourage the proliferation of promising security technologies on the market without fear of pushback from industry lobbyists or other political forces.
In 2012, for example, the IIHS added a small overlap crash test and a new price category Top Safety Pick, recognize vehicles that have passed the test well over 50 vehicles from the 2012 model year were submitted the small overlap crash test; less than 10 obtained Many automakers Top notes are scrambling to improve their performance, and the number of vehicles increased rated every year since.
A year later, the IIHS tightened criteria for TSP rating by requiring that vehicles be equipped with accident prevention systems that met the basic note last year, it raised the bar again , requiring vehicles to receive advanced or higher rankings on the performance of the prevention systems. crash
Meanwhile, the NHTSA accident prevention technology is still under study The Agency reports on the benefits of safety accident prevention systems in 2012 and has detailed its refining test procedures in a the last report in August 2012 study found that technology would prevent about 200,000 minor injuries, 4,000 serious injuries and 100 deaths a year if fitted on all light vehicles.
Based on these results, the agency has taken the limited initiative in January to recommend automatic braking, collision warning and pre-departure warning track technology on new cars, but it stopped short of them, including as criteria in its safety rating system of 5 stars All mandate would be years away.
A major reason for the fastest track IIHS NHTSA is his constituency represents taxpayers and the public conduct and has put strong emphasis on impact resistance to minimize injuries and deaths IIHS works for industry insurance to help reduce not only to claims for injury and death, but also a vehicle and property damage claims Thus IIHS has been much more aggressive in testing and promoting accident prevention technologies.
There's some convergence between what the insurance companies seek to protect, which is both human lives, but also the property, said John Krafcik, president of TrueCar and former director of product planning at Ford and CEO of Hyundai Motor America to avoid collisions did both of those things.
Certainly, NHTSA plays a vital role by requiring that security technologies adopted by vehicle manufacturers meet certain minimum performance requirements of the regulatory mandate a technology process involves a thorough review and comment by industry.
While IIHS can move faster than the NHTSA, the agency said, both working towards the same goal.
5 stars The crash ratings from NHTSA promote innovations that raise the safety bar, a goal we share with IIHS spokesman NHTSA Gordon Trowbridge two programs set high standards for manufacturers and pushed manufacturers continue to design improvements, engineering and technology that save lives and prevent injuries.
IIHS is considered as a supplement to NHTSA, helping automakers to set priorities and provide a clear business case to push constantly the envelope of security systems.
Frankly, what our program types are doing is we are giving engineers automakers said Adrian Lund, IIHS president, who has been with the organization since 1981, we are not designing safer cars that they are, but they are often difficult to lose Pry dollars to develop new safety technology unless someone will evaluate what is our role to assess and give them some support for safer cars.
The role of the IIHS as an independent validator was exposed clearly in 2004, when he published the results that control electronic stability could halve the nearly 14,000 involved in single vehicle that occurred on US roads each year.
At the time, NHTSA still studying the control electronic stability, which was found on most luxury cars and high performance.
This study was extremely influential in the industry, and it certainly helped our decision to Hyundai to make ESC standard on Sonata 2006 we announced at the Detroit Motor Show in January 2005, said Krafcik, who was the best American product planner Hyundai at the time, it was somehow the puzzle piece that was needed to give Hyundai the courage to do this bold move.
Control electronic stability NHTSA loaded from the 2012 model year.
IIHS helps stimulate manufacturers to take leadership positions which become positions on the mass market, Krafcik said the role of the NHTSA is making sure the end, everyone meets a certain level.
IIHS predates the formation of the NHTSA or the Department of Transport He started in 1959 as a research organization funded by insurance companies holding approximately 80 percent of all auto policies in the U S.
William Haddon Jr. the first head of the federal road authorities and car safety would become the NHTSA in 1970, left the government and took the IIHS bar in 1969, he launched IIHS of data-driven, scientific approach improve safety of the car and reduce the number of vehicle accidents.
In 1995 IIHS began to take a more assertive role with automakers by introducing its first crash test at high speed, the partial overlap front test Collision 40 mph in which about 40 percent of the front of a vehicle hits a barrier, designed to be more rigorous than the frontal crash test of the federal government.
At the time, he was derided by automakers as wasteful and questionable, says Lund But the skepticism faded as the IIHS engineers have begun working with their counterparts in automakers, he said.
A big reason for the influence of the IIHS is located in the vast claims data store insurance provided by its member companies through the Highway Loss Data Institute, which was founded in 1972 with this data, IIHS is assess the effectiveness of their security technologies to market entry, providing valuable feedback to automakers.
The IIHS is a really unique place said Chuck Thomas, chief safety engineer at Honda R & D Americas because they have access to insurance claims data as the rest of us to help them provide the kind of research that identifies areas of the fleet where we can improve.
For example, a 2012 study by the Highway Loss Data Institute to measure the effectiveness of accident prevention technologies found that the crossover XC60 with Volvo City Safety automatic braking function had a lower rate of 20 per cent of requests collision with other luxury midsize SUVs, a rate lower than 15 percent of applications for property damage and a lower rate of 33 percent of personal injury claims.
The average cost of collision claims was 450 less, and overall losses of collision claims were less than 92 per claim, the study found.
This led IIHS add before accident prevention systems as criteria for its 2014 Top Safety Pick award, says Lund.
In 2012, according to research firm IHS Automotive, 2 3 percent of vehicles produced in North America were equipped with collision warning systems or automatic braking that developed 3 9 percent in 2013 and 5 April percent last year It's expected to hit 7 5 percent this year.
Jeremy Carlson, principal analyst IHS that controls the advanced driver assistance systems, attributes the growth to more technology tests before a mandate in 2017 in Europe, lower system costs and impact of IIHS evaluations.
Similarly, says Lund, insurance claims data have documented a reduction in multivehicle accidents and personal injury claims for vehicles with adaptive headlights that turn like a mini vehicle.
This is probably our next technology, we will recognize because we have been able to document clearly says Lund.
What makes the IIHS particularly influential approach is the fierce competition in the automotive industry today, not only for sales, but for security supremacy Each tweak security standards adds pressure on manufacturers Car improve their products accordingly, in fact, the existence of the TSP category pushes automakers to shoot for a 11 on a scale of 1 to 10, with some confidence that the market will reward them.
Small things much, said Karl Brauer, senior analyst at In this case, having a less-than-highest score of security and a better safety score can absolutely make a difference in what cars are purchased.
IIHS also goes to great lengths to gain exposure for his work The crash test area in the center of Research Group vehicles in rural Virginia is the laboratory of part, part Hollywood soundstage.
It's decked out with an array of high speed, cinema-quality cameras and lights to document all tests from multiple angles, and the editing studios that produce high quality videos and images of each crash test that are displayed online and made available to news agencies.
These images are used by engineers to analyze the crash tests, but they also re an essential part of our communication efforts, Pini Kalnite, Service Manager of the IIHS film production and media, said in an online video describing the how the tests are documented to increase the reach and impact of our work.
Lund said he is only especially as improved safety IIHS can get to invent new crash tests The real gains are coming in accident prevention or significantly reduce their impact.
Increasingly, we will be looking at the technologies that provide collision speeds up the rate we're already testing, said Lund.
This means test new features and active safety technologies that allow cars connected vehicles and infrastructure to communicate over wireless networks and warn of impending dangers.
For this reason, IIHS is at the center of a $ 30 million expansion of its Research Center on vehicles in Ruckersville, a village nestled in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains will include a covered test track for testing throughout the year, the project should be completed in early summer.
Car manufacturers and their suppliers have led the way in the development of this technology and do it there, Lund said what they need is an objective third party to help them identify which of these technologies are beneficial and which can be presented as a security advantage s where we think we have really been able to make a difference.
IIHS NHTSA defeats as Pacer safely IIHS, NHTSA safety.