The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) has once again changed the rules of the game by introducing tougher criteria for 2020.
In order to nab the Top Safety Pick+ award, the vehicles will need to have standard ‘good’ or ‘acceptable’ headlights. Out of the 224 cars evaluated in 2016, when they first started rating the headlamps, only 3 earned a ‘good’ score and another 36 were noted as ‘acceptable’. For the 2019 model year, the IIHS evaluated 465 systems, rating 68 as ‘good’ and 103 as ‘acceptable’ – which goes to show that automakers do pay attention to the safety organization’s findings.
Read: VW Arteon Misses Out On IIHS Top Safety Pick Over Poor LED Headlights
Looking to address the growing number of pedestrian fatalities in the United States, which have reached their peak in more than 25 years, the IIHS will also introduce pedestrian crash prevention ratings. These join the vehicle-to-vehicle rating and will see cars being tested out in three scenarios, each of them at two speeds. Completing the phase-in of the crash test will be passenger-side small overlap, where a ‘good’ rating is required in order to pass the inspection.
Speaking about the new criteria, the IIHS Chief Research Officer, David Zuby, said: “As we do nearly every year, we’re making it a little tougher to earn our awards. We hope these changes will encourage automakers to stop equipping vehicles with inferior headlights and speed the adoption of technology that can help protect pedestrians. Decent headlights should be a given, and we hope this change to our criteria will push manufacturers to make them standard across their lineup.”
