Dalzell Brothers's automotive expertise is a product of our sustained interest in industry trends and characteristics. We are privileged to share the latest news, promotions and events with you and hope the information will enhance your shopping experience. As you know, there are many new cars from which to choose, and we believe an informed customer is the best customer.
If increasing the odds of surviving a head-on collision -- the most common type of fatal traffic accident -- is a car buyer's paramount concern, then basic laws of physics trump fancy safety features. In other words, size matters.
"The single most important contributor to a vehicle's crash survivability is its mass," said Russ Rader, a spokesman for the Arlington, Va.-based Insurance Institute, which conducts ongoing crash tests on 150 vehicles.
SUVs and pickup trucks are weighty by nature, but at the same time, they take longer to stop and are more susceptible to rollovers another leading type of traffic fatality.
So focusing on sedans, sparing no expense and taking into consideration its storied history as a leader in safety innovation, Volvo races to mind when evaluating safe cars, most experts agree. The Volvo S80 ranked among the four safest "large" cars that were collision-tested by the Insurance Institute. Nerad, who has been writing about auto safety for more than a decade, conceded that as his younger children now approach driving age he has been giving this issue a lot of extra thought lately. He is leaning toward Volvo.
"Volvo walks the talk on safety," Nerad said. "Being on the cutting edge is part of their culture."
Considering size and design durability, plus overlaying all of the advanced technological features Volvo drivers have come to expect, such as automatic driver alerts helping to mitigate everything from lane drift to blind spots, the Volvo S80 has to be considered a standard bearer in the drive toward safest car ever built.