When asked, many people cite increased fuel efficiency and reduced emissions as their main incentives for buying a hybrid car or SUV.  In reality though, a hybrid vehicle’s safety rating seems like a far more important consideration.  While government safety requirements and technology improvements continue to make the cars we drive and the roads we travel safer, the fact remains that tens of thousands of people are killed or injured in automobile accidents every year.

If you are shopping for a hybrid vehicle, you currently have several green cars and SUVs to choose from (hybrid trucks will also be an option later this year).  In making your choice, it’s fairly easy to compare things like gas mileage, seating capacity, cargo room, interior features, and towing capacity.  On the other hand, it’s much more difficult to identify the safest SUVs.  Safety features like airbags, anti-lock brakes, vehicle (electronic) stability control, and tire pressure monitoring systems can tell us part of the story, but they alone don’t answer the big question.  Ultimately, we just want to know which hybrid vehicle is the safest.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) and the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) both conduct various tests which can help us better determine the safest SUV options.  Some of the tests include offset frontal crashes (where only a portion of the front of the vehicle hits a barrier), head on collisions (vehicle directly impacts a solid wall), side-impact crash tests, rollover tests, and road edge recovery tests.

Results of these IIHS tests report whether an SUV has received a good, acceptable, marginal, or poor rating.  The NHTSA uses a 5 star rating system (5 being the best, and 1 the worst) for their crash protection and rollover test ratings.  Unfortunately, not all hybrid SUVs have undergone crash tests as of early 2008, so we are left to wonder if hybrid models would perform similarly to their gas-only counterparts.

There is a fair amount of negative press about SUV rollovers.  In fact, the NHTSA reports that SUVs have a rollover rate that is three times that of passenger cars.  Newer SUVs from manufacturers such as Ford are now using a rollover sensing technology that deploys side curtain airbags when a rollover begins.  Another important safety consideration related to vehicle rollovers is termed “roof crush”, which is measured by how much the roof collapses under pressure.  Every new vehicle must now pass NHTSA roof crush requirements, meaning the roof must not be impacted more than 5 inches when a plate is pressed down at a force equal to 1.5 times the vehicle’s weight.  For more on this subject, here is a good article.

The compatibility (or lack thereof) between two vehicles involved in a crash is another topic of much debate.  For example, in a car vs. SUV crash/accident, the taller vehicle (typically the sport utility) impacts the passenger car at a point that is above the car’s ”crumple zone”.  This incompatibility between the two vehicles often results in much greater damage to the shorter vehicle, and higher rates of injury for its occupants.  Some automakers are now redesigning SUVs and trucks to be more compatible with shorter passenger vehicles in terms of weight and ride height.  Unfortunately, this issue poses a major disadvantage for smaller cars, and is one that doesn’t appear to be going away any time soon.

When evaluating how a specific car or SUV handles a crash, you can also look for crash test videos on quite a few websites.  I’ve had the most success using YouTube.com and doing searches such as: [insert suv] crash test.  Here is an example: SUV - Prius Crash Test Video

NHTSA Results:

2008 Ford Escape Hybrid (Crash and Rollover Test Results)
2008 Lexus RX 400h (Crash Test)
2008 Toyota Highlander Hybrid (Crash Test and Rollover Results)
2008 Mercury Mariner Hybrid (Crash and Rollover Test Results)
2008 Mazda Tribute Hybrid (Crash and Rollover safety ratings)
2008 Saturn Vue Hybrid (Crash Test Results)
2008 Chevy Tahoe Hybrid (Crash Test Ratings)
2008 GMC Yukon Hybrid (Crash Test Only)

IIHS Results:

2008 Ford Escape
2008 Mazda Tribute
2008 Mercury Mariner
Lexus RX Models
2008 Toyota Highlander
2008 Saturn Vue
2008 Chevrolet Tahoe (no results yet)
2008 GMC Yukon (no results yet)

In summary, while it’s great to go green, evaluating the safety of your next vehicle should be high on your list of priorities.  Reducing emissions and saving some money at the pump are both important, but in my opinion, vehicle safety comes first.

Additional Resources For SUV Safety Ratings include:

www.hwysafety.org
www.safercar.gov