Volvo earns top honors in 2015 IIHS Top Safety Pick+ Awards

Renowned for its pursuit of the highest standards in automotive safety, and putting people first in its continuously-evolving automotive technology, Swedish automaker Volvo has once again made headlines as it garnered top honors in this year’s Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) Top Safety Pick+ Awards.

Being one of the highest institutions in globally promoting, advocating, and helping to improve automotive and road safety, IIHS has awarded four of Volvo’s top-selling vehicles – the S60, V60, S80, and the XC60. What’s more exciting is that for us here in the Philippines, these award-winning Volvo vehicles are readily available.

“Volvo Cars' commitment to real-life safety and our Vision 2020, which states that no one should be killed or seriously injured in or by a new Volvo car, underlines our approach towards continuous improvement in this field. At Volvo Cars we focus on real-life safety - reflecting the many and varied causes and results of car accidents. It is of course a wonderful thing that we receive such honors and recognition for our advanced safety innovations from leading safety institutes,” said Dr. Peter Mertens, Senior Vice President Research & Development at Volvo Cars.

The criteria for this year’s IIHS Top Safety Pick+ Awards has been re-assessed, thus resulting in a much tougher set of evaluative measures, tests, and standards to determine whether the vehicle is safe enough, not just for its occupants, but also for the pedestrians and fellow motorists, as well. Considering the increased performance and average speeds achieved by today’s automobiles, an emphasis in front collision prevention was strictly implemented. In order for a vehicle to pass the IIHS Top Safety Pick+ evaluation, it must have the ability to stop or slow down without driver intervention before hitting a target, at speeds of 12mph (19.3km/h), 20mph (40.2km/h), or both.

Volvo cars have been shown excelling in such tests, thanks to its front crash evasion technology. A standard safety feature in all of Volvo’s latest cars, its “City Safety” effectively helps the driver in detecting an imminent front collision. It then follows through by automatically activating the car’s braking system to prevent or help the driver evade a frontal hit. For those who worry about automotive insurance charges, Volvo’s City Safety Technology has been proven to frequently lower insurance claims by a very significant 16%. How’s that for a sigh of relief?

“Volvo Cars has received much recognition during its long history of safety driving the industry forward. A perfect example of this is the three-point safety belt, invented at Volvo in 1959 and now used globally by all carmakers. With the sales start of the All-New XC90 in 2015, Volvo Cars will offer the world’s most advanced crash avoidance technology as standard.” said Thomas Broberg, Senior Safety Advisor at Volvo Cars.