If you are a vehicle manufacturer that sells most of your cars to people with families -- or anyone, really -- then getting your vehicle rated as a Top Safety Pick Plus award by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety is a big deal. If you built your entire brand on the idea that your cars were the safest on the road -- like Volvo, for example -- then those IIHS awards are crucial.
It's a good thing then that Volvo is currently the only carmaker in the US whose entire model range has gotten the coveted safety award. That's right, every single 2021 model Volvo is an IIHS Top Safety Pick Plus, the coompany announced Thursday. Not bad, not bad at all.
These days, getting the Top Safety Pick Plus award requires more than just being safe in a crash, too -- though that is obviously the foundation of what the IIHS looks for. It also involves being able to avoid getting into a crash in the first place. That's why the IIHS places such a premium on vehicles having fheadlights rated fair or better available, which is required for the Top Safety Pick award, but those lights have to be standard across all trim levels to get the Plus.
The IIHS also deems it critical to have excellent vehicle-to-vehicle and vehicle-to-pedestrian crash mitigation technology. Think along the lines of automatic emergency braking here. Volvo was one of the first companies to offer a vehicle with automatic emergency braking as part of its City Safety system on the original XC60, so it has more than a bit of practice here as well.
So, even though the world we live in is a frightening and constantly changing place, some things remain the same. Water is wet, the sky is blue and Volvos are still very safe cars.
