Buying a car, for many, is one of the biggest purchases they will ever make. Aside from price and how it fits our lifestyle, everyone shopping for a new car wants to choose something that has a high safety rating.
These car reviews and ranking are based on two factors: crash test results from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS), an educational and scientific organization that aims to reduce motor vehicle crashes and the Highway Loss Data Institute (HLDI), a research organization that publishes insurance loss statistics on automobiles in the United States.
The 2020 criteria include ratings in passenger-side small overlap front, driver-side small overlap front, moderate overlap front, side, head restraint tests, and roof strength. It also considers vehicle-to-vehicle and vehicle-to-pedestrian evaluations on available front crash prevention features. Lastly, the criteria determine if the car provides good headlights as per standard.
2020 Subaru Crosstrek Hybrid 4-door wagon
A frontal crash is the most common type of crash resulting in deaths. Major frontal crash test programs started in the late 1970s by National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) had been greatly beneficial on how engineers design vehicles.
A plug-in hybrid electric variant of the Crosstrek wagon, the Subaru Crosstrek Hybrid was introduced in the 2019 model year and has a superior rating when it comes to front crash prevention. It has a perfect score rating for crashworthiness such as roof strength, head restraints and seats, and all the small and moderate overlap tests.
Its child seat anchors also received a G+ rating which is higher than the standard G (Good) rating that IIHS benchmarks other vehicles. Subaru Crosstrek Hybrid has two rear seating positions with complete LATCH hardware. LATCH which stands for Lower Anchors and Tethers for Children is an attachment hardware system for child restraints. As per existing rules, most vehicles are required to have at least three LATCH hardware, two in rear seating positions, and a third with at least a tether anchor. A rating of Good+ means that Subaru Crosstrek Hybrid meets all the criteria for a good rating and it also has additional LATCH-equipped seating positions that make the installation of the car seat easy to use.
2020 Toyota Camry 4-door sedan
Toyota Camry is one of the most bestselling medium-size sedans in the market today for its mix of quality and value for money. In terms of safety, this vehicle received the highest rating of Good in all six crash test categories from IIHS.
Active safety features are also quite standard in any Camry variants such as rearview camera and the Toyota Safety Sense-P suite. TSS-P is a bundle of safety features installed by Toyota on many of its new vehicles. This includes lane keep assist, lane departure alert, radar cruise control, forward collision warning, pedestrian detection, forward automatic emergency braking, and automatic high-beam headlights.
Toyota Camry 2020 has a surround-view parking camera system, rear cross-traffic alert, reverse automatic emergency braking, blind-spot detection, and a head-up display. (Source: Consumer Insurance Report)
Its Hybrid XLE trim model receives an overall rating of Good for its headlight evaluation. When about half of all fatal crashes in the U.S. occur in the dark, headlights play an important role to prevent nighttime crashes, especially on unlit roads. Its LED projector low-beam never exceeded glare limits and its high-beam headlights compensate for some limitations on the vehicle’s low beam.