Top-10 most important safety features when buying a car

If you’re considering a new or used car, style, color, economy and versatility are important. But getting the best safety features should be the top priority of your investment. Here are the top-10 car safety features to consider when buying a car.

1. Air bags. The front air bags inflate in order to prevent passengers from hitting the car’s dashboard, the windshield, as well as the steering wheel. (depends on the impact, speed as well as the hardness of the struck object). Side air bags lessen the risk for occupants to hit the objects or their door during a crash. A cars’ dash will indicate if there is an issue with the airbags, familiarize yourself with these warnings.

2. Antilock Brake System. An Antilock Brake System or ABS for short, prevents the wheels of a car from locking during those times of “panic” braking. Enabling the driver to maintain steering control which remains to be a major factor in order to avoid a collision. Nevertheless, that does not make it a surefire guarantee in preventing a crash.

3. Seat belts. In case of a car crash, seat belts were designed to keep you in place within the car a minimize injury. You should always check there is no damage to the belts and they are working properly. New seat belt designs have included more added extra features in order to enhance their performance.

Safety Rules When Considering A Car Purchase

4. All-Wheel Drive. This feature evenly distributes the power not just on the front, but also to the rear wheels in order to make the most of the traction. Except integrated with its traction control, the all-wheel drive systems don’t prevent the drive wheels from slipping whenever it is applied with excessive power in times of acceleration.

5. Weight. Crash data shows heavy cars provide higher protection than lighter vehicles have with similar safety equipment. Its especially true in two or multiple-vehicle collisions.

6. Traction Control. The traction control systems enhance car stability by controlling the volume of the drive wheels whenever extreme power is applied. The system instantly alters its engine power output and in some other systems, applies the braking force to those chosen wheels throughout acceleration. The traction control is primarily found in cars with 4-wheel antilock brake systems.

7. Head Injury Protection. This feature includes foam or other energy absorbing fabric below the trim of the car’s interior and is most likely to be not visible to the car’s occupants. Some cars include head air bags which are deployed when it comes to side impacts, as well as to deploy in times of rollovers. Both kinds of air bags are generated to assist in shielding the occupants from crashes due to injuries when one’s head strikes the car’s upper interior.

8. Head Restraints. The head restraints are the extensions of the seats in cars which control the movement of the head during those bad rear-impact crash, hence, minimizing the possibility of having neck injury. Head restraints that meet specified strength and size requirements are needed in front seats, but not in rear seats. Whilst you should not alter manually most of the head restraints, some automatically adjust with changes in the position of seats or in a crash. Generally speaking, the dynamic head restraints always give the best protection.

9. Electronic Stability Control. This feature is created to aid drivers in maintaining their control sense whenever a car is beginning to oversteer (also known as spin out) or plow out (also known as understeer). It instantly applies the brake to one wheel. It’s made to minimize the crash occurrences in which the cars veer of the road, strike the curbs, guard rails, the soft shoulders as well as other things which could instigate rollovers. Nevertheless, it cannot keep a car on the road if its speed is just too good for the curve, not to mention the available traction.

10. Reversing cameras. It’s among the newer available safety features, and it’s important . Reversing cameras are made to save the lives of kids in driveways and carparks, and aid the driver with maneuverers. Cameras were once reserved for large sports utility vehicles (SUVs). The feature is now more readily available in a wide range of cars and trucks.

Mark Miller is a blogger and editor at Smartbeard.com. He writes about all things manly — cars to grooming, health to careers.