Not all cars' pedestrian detection systems created equal, so the IIHS tested them
The organization pitted 16 midsize cars against one another to find out which systems were best.
Just because technologies are becoming standard equipment across the industry at all kinds of price points doesn't mean that all the manufacturers' application of it is equal. An excellent example of this is with automatic emergency braking with pedestrian detection.
The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety decided recently that it wanted to investigate the efficacy of the different pedestrian detection systems on the market, so it rounded up 16 midsize cars from a bunch of different manufacturers and at several price points to see how they'd stack up and it published the results of its study on Tuesday.
The results of the tests were divided up into four categories: Superior, Advanced, Basic and No Credit. Out of all the cars tested, six were able to snag themselves a superior rating, and the list of those reads pretty much as you'd expect with Audi , BMW, Mercedes-Benz and Volvo unsurprisingly making the cut.
The two other brands that made the cut for a superior rating were Nissan and Subaru , proving that you don't necessarily have to spend a boatload of cash to get effective safety tech. In fact, the IIHS referred to the Maxima and the Outback as being standout vehicles for the test.
Comparatively, the Ford Fusion performed so poorly that it received no credit, which is kind of like your parents telling you that they're not mad, just really disappointed. No credit somehow seems worse than the "Poor" rating that IIHS uses in other tests.
