You’ve run the red light and are speeding through the intersection, but a pickup truck t-bones your sedan and sends you pinwheeling into a tree. When you come to and the airbags deflate, your car is the shape of a crushed Coke can. But the good news is everyone is alive. You thank God for seatbelts and swear never to run a red light again. But did you remember to give thanks to the steel safety cage, side airbags, or crumple zones? To be sure, seatbelts are responsible for saving thousands of lives each year, but they’re just one of the many features that manufacturers use to protect a car’s most precious cargo.

In addition to seatbelts, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) requires safety features such as headlights, windshield wipers, and interior trunk releases.The NHTSA is also responsible for conducting crash tests of new cars on the market, cars with significant structural or safety changes, and cars with the highest sales volume. However, safety ratings given by the NHTSA rate a car’s ability to protect its occupants in a crash, but not necessarily how well they avoid accidents in the first place.

Given that new features are constantly popping up, it’s important for consumers to know which safety features to look for. A leading misconception is that luxury cars are often the safest cars, and the bigger the vehicle, the safer the car. However, the top-of-the-line safety features aren’t always standard despite the high sticker price, and some of the biggest or most expensive cars fair worse in crash tests than your average family sedan.

Playing it safe
Front airbags are what keep your head from becoming one with the steering wheel and windshield. Since their requirement in 1999, airbags have been responsible for saving thousands of lives each year. But despite their significant life benefits, side airbags are not required in either the front or rear sections of the car. When it comes to airbags, the more the better. In fact, some SUVs also offer rollover airbags or airbag curtains that help prevent injury as a result of a rollover accident by keeping the occupants—who are often not wearing seatbelts—in place.

The structural integrity of a car goes a long way to protecting its occupants, and the safest cars have crumple zones, shock absorbing interiors, reinforced roofs, and protective pillars. Even convertibles are getting safer these days and come equipped with static roll-bars or roll-bars that extend when a car looses contact with the ground.

An ounce of prevention
Airbags, seatbelts, and tons of steel go a long way to keeping occupants safe in car accidents, but many consumers are hoping to avoid life-threatening situations from the start. If staying on all four wheels is important to you, look for a car equipped with Electronic Stability Control (ESC). Vehicle rollovers are responsible for 33 percent of all fatalities, according to the NHTSA. While all cars are susceptible to rolling over, SUVs are especially roll-over prone due to their high center of gravity and relatively narrow body width.

Many rollovers occur when a driver makes an abrupt driving maneuver, such as swerving to avoid an obstacle or whips around a curve too fast. ESC helps prevent rollovers by controlling the braking of each tire. With ESC, the extra stability keeps the car from spinning out of control and the vehicle upright and on all four wheels. ESC goes by many trade names, including Vehicle Stability Control (VSC), Electronic Stability Program (ESP), and Vehicle Stability Enhancement (VSE). ESC will be available as a standard feature on light-duty vehicles beginning 2009, and starting 2012 on all vehicles.

More than bells and whistles
Anti-lock Braking System (ABS) is more than just an expensive repair job. ABS are used to help drivers maintain control of their car while braking, especially in wet weather, by automatically pumping the brakes to prevent them from locking during panic breaking. Traction control keeps a car’s wheel from spinning during rapid acceleration on slippery surfaces, and often works in concert with the car’s ABS or engine controls to control wheel spin in braking situations.

Tire pressure monitoring systems notify a driver when the tire pressure drops below the recommended amount. Underinflated tires causes increase wear and potentially cause a blow out. Beginning September 1, 2007, all new cars are required to have tire pressure monitoring systems that notify drivers when a tire is significantly underinflated.

Safety features of tomorrow
A new breed of safety features are on the horizon that will help keep drivers out of contact with other vehicles. New to market are cars equipped with lane departure avoidance systems that assist drivers with maintaining their lane position and prevent the vehicle from leaving the road.

Also emerging on the market are rear-end collision avoidance systems. Rear-end crashes are the most common accidents occurring on the road, and some manufacturers are developing technology to help drivers avoid rear-end collisions by through warnings or automatically braking the vehicle