The Best Car Safety Features on the Market

From research to recommendations, many questions come up while trying to find the best new car. Landing that perfect vehicle can be a daunting task. Like most people, you’ll want the safest and most reliable car you can afford. One of the most important aspects of choosing a new vehicle will be the car safety features and determining which of the cars with the best safety features you’ll be driving off of the lot.

While almost every car you can buy today comes with some form of safety features, not all car safety features are made equal. If you want to find out about the cars with the best features on the market, the team at Adam S. Kutner, Injury Attorneys, created a comprehensive list.

15 Top Car Safety Features

Modern safety features have moved way beyond mirror turn signals, automatic high beams, and antilock brakes. New and advanced car technology help drivers to be more aware and help keep roads safer for everyone. Here are some of the best car safety features on the market:

1. Seat Belt Automatic Tug

One of the most effective safety devices is the seatbelt. While it may seem like old news, seatbelts are constantly being made better to ensure safety in a vehicle. Automatic tensioning technology in seatbelts will give an extra tug to ensure that the seatbelt is the proper length for maximum protection.

2. 911 Calling/Emergency Services

While you never hope to be in this situation, the chance of getting into a crash is always a stark reality. Many of the newest models of cars on the market bolster a feature that will automatically call emergency responders in the event of a crash. Contacting emergency responders as soon as a collision occurs can be life-saving for you as well as other drivers.

3. Fatigue Monitoring

Road trips are incredibly exciting, but with the fun comes long, extended, and even monotonous stretches of lengthy driving. Fatigue monitoring is one of a handful of car safety features that can really save lives. You might want to push through a long drive even when you’re exhausted, but fatigue monitoring will alert you to take a break depending on the time of day or the amount of time you have been driving.

4. Built-in Navigation System

It’s easier than ever to look up directions right on your phone, and they will take you anywhere you need to go. Many of the cars with the best safety features include built-in navigation systems. While using your phone hands-free can be fine, built-in navigation systems offer much less distraction while getting to your destination.

5. Automatic Braking Systems

Arguably one of the most crucial car safety features. If you’re buying a new car, you will want to make sure it has automatic braking systems. These driver assistance systems are put in place to provide critical extra seconds between a potential collision and human response time. There are a handful of different systems involved in automatic braking, including:

• Automatic Emergency Braking: Automatic brakes are applied when the system detects an oncoming or potential collision.
• City Automatic Emergency Braking: Automatic braking is applied when detecting an oncoming collision while traveling at city speeds.
• High-Speed Automatic Emergency Braking: Braking is applied when a potential collision is detected, and the car is traveling at high speeds.
• Pedestrian Detection: Automatic braking is applied when the system recognizes and detects a potential crash with a pedestrian.

6. Blind Spot Warning

Blind-spot monitoring is one of the best car safety features available when driving a newer car. Newer vehicles have visual cues or audible alerts when a car is getting too close to your vehicle and poses a potential danger. Some more advanced blind-spot monitoring systems will automatically move the car to avoid a likely blind-spot fender bender.

7. Forward-Collision Warning

Cars that include forward-collision warning systems have radars or cameras to detect objects, pedestrians, and cyclists. When the system detects a potential collision between your vehicle and the object, the vehicle will alert the driver of a potential hazard.

8. Rear Cross-Traffic Alert

Advancements in the same technology used in blind-spot monitoring, rear cross-traffic warning systems in your vehicle use rear radars or a backup camera to detect potential collisions while your vehicle is backing up. This is one of the many car safety features that have prevented countless fender benders for drivers.

9. Lane Departure Warning

Have you ever veered ever so slightly over the line of a highway lane and jumped at the feeling and sound of the pebbled road on the other side? Hopefully, you have not, but car safety experts have come up with a solution to make sure that doesn’t happen. Lane departure warning is a system that will visually or audibly alert a driver if their car is veering over the line of a designated driving lane.

10. Lane Keeping Assist

Lane Departure Warnings (or LDW) are one of the car safety features that will alert you when your car is drifting out of a designated lane. Lane-keeping assistance takes this one step further, and the system will physically correct the movement of your car and place it safely back into the safe zone of the lane.

11. Adaptive Cruise Control

Cruise control isn’t exactly the newest or flashiest of car safety features. However, just like seatbelts, even cruise control has gotten safety upgrades in more recent models of cars. While cruise control will keep your vehicle accelerating at a designated speed, newer versions of adaptive cruise control can adapt to the speed of traffic around your vehicle and even automatically resume cruise control after stopping.

12. Pedestrian Detection

Covered under automatic braking systems, pedestrian detection is one of the most prolific car safety features in recent years. Pedestrian detection in your car will automatically recognize and detect pedestrians via built-in cameras or radars. Additionally, some of the cars with the best safety features will even automatically brake or change the direction of your vehicle to avoid a collision with a pedestrian.

13. Automatic Parking

Have you ever been desperately searching for a parking spot and scratched your head at someone else’s parking job? If you answered yes, you’re not alone. Luckily there are car safety features like automatic parking built into newer cars that allow those who cannot park well to do so and allows other drivers to park their car in some tight spots safely. Automatic parking senses the space of a parking spot and will automatically park the vehicle for you. 

14. Single Pedal Driving

Single pedal driving or one-pedal driving is one of the car safety features that may sound a little confusing at first. One pedal driving is a system where a single pedal is used to accelerate, and when the foot lifts off the pedal, the car will begin to brake. While it could take some getting used to, single pedal driving is much easier on a vehicle’s braking system and can save precious seconds when needing to brake abruptly.

15. Traffic Sign Recognition

Have you ever passed a road sign only to wonder what it said? The traffic sign recognition system uses a forward-facing camera located inside the windshield to read road signs as they pass and then displays them on the dashboard for the driver to see. This feature gives drivers a little extra help when attention may be diverted to other situations on the road.

The wide variety of car safety features can be overwhelming, and it can be challenging to find one car with all the top safety picks. Remember that your vehicle does not have to have all of these listed features to be safe. However, a study from Carnegie Mellon University shows that advanced car safety features reduce crash frequency¹ by 3.5%.

Top Car Safety Picks to Prevent Car Accidents

A list of recommended cars² for top safety picks comes out every year, so whether you’re a devoted Toyota, Honda, Subaru, BMW, or Audi driver, you’ll get a good idea of the safest cars in your preferred category.

Even with the best car safety features that money can buy, accidents happen. The team at Adam S. Kutner, Injury Attorneys are highly skilled and knowledgeable. If you have been in a car accident resulting in injury, a car accident lawyer Las Vegas can help give you peace of mind and assurance in your next steps. 

Sources:

¹Elliot, C.(2 September 202) Are Vehicle Safety Features Actually Reducing Car Accidents? Forbes Advisor. Retrieved 27 May 2022.

²2022 Top Safety Picks. Insurance Institute For Highway Safety. Retrieved 27 May 2022.