InsuranceInstituteForHighwaySafety
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Insurance group: Tesla's Model S is safe, but not super safe
Tesla has always made a big deal about how safe its electric cars are, and frequently boast about how they have the highest ratings at the NHTSA. But the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, a vehicle testing outfit run by the insurance industry, threw some shade on the company in its latest report. The body says that Tesla's Model S falls just short of winning its top safety award, which was scooped by the Mercedes-Benz E Class, Lincoln Continental and the Toyota Avalon.
Auto-insurance researchers: 'Cell phone bans don't help reduce crashes'
All those fancy in-car docks and voice navigation? Utterly pointless. At least according to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, who reckons that it's not the phone that's the issue, but "the full spectrum of things that distract." The IIHS (funded by a group of car insurers) compared crash data between states that had instituted cell phone bans and those that hadn't. According to its research, while the ban had reduced phone use (whoa, really?), it hadn't helped reduce crash rates. The National Transportation Safety Board has presented several studies linking cell phone use to an increased chance of crashing and their latest proposals would ban most hands-free systems found in major car makers' vehicles today. Hear that? That was the sound of hundreds of third-party accessory manufacturers recoiling in horror.
Data suggests handheld phone bans while driving aren't helping
The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety's Highway Loss Data Institute (try saying that five times fast) seems like it'd be the first organization in the world to vehemently support bans on the use of handheld phones while driving, but interestingly, it's come out with some data recently to suggest they're not doing much good. A study of insurance claims in four regions where laws have been passed -- New York, Washington, DC, Connecticut, and California -- both before and after the bans went into effect, compared to adjacent regions where use was allowed, apparently shows no demonstrable drop in accidents. Now, the IIHS claims that "we know that such laws have reduced hand-held phone use" -- but from our personal experience in areas where laws have been passed, we can definitely confirm that there are still plenty of folks ignoring the bans, so there are at least a couple factors at play here. Does this mean yapping is a good idea while you're behind the wheel? No, but it might confirm the obvious: you're still distracted even if you're on a handsfree.
