Like many car enthusiasts, I am addicted to horsepower, torque, and otherwise raw performance. It?s not until you get older, have kids, or live through a car accident, you start thinking about safety. Even modern day muscle cars are engineered for safety; look no further than the specs on the Dodge Challenger and Charger. Even with their incredibly powerful engines, both have at least 70 available safety features and a 5-star rating from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
Collision Reflection
In 2009, I was coming home from a sales meeting in Minneapolis-St.Paul with my co-workers from Sioux Falls Ford. We sustained a rear impact in a road construction zone on I-35; the truck that hit us was moving at full speed and didn?t see us stopped in traffic. The blunt force caused us to side swipe the vehicle ahead of us as we plummeted towards the ditch. We were in a 2009 Ford Explorer, one that had 5-stars from NHTSA for rear impacts. I was sitting in the back seat and suffered serious spine and neck injuries, but the bottom line is, I am alive. Given I was working for Ford at the time, my personal experience with the Explorer in this capacity made it much easier to sell to families who inquired about its safety.
2009 Ford Explorer. Photo: Ford Motor Company.
Accident Free World"
Advocates of autonomous driving propose a world of advanced safety; one where collisions like I experienced and traffic related fatalities cease. Automakers like Volvo are some of t...