Toyota has long made the safety of its customers a top priority, and that commitment continues to earn kudos from industry experts. For example, through May, the Toyota Corolla, Scion xB, Toyota 4Runner, Toyota Sienna, Toyota Avalon and Lexus RX 350 had all been named “Top Safety Picks” by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS). Now, two more of the automaker’s key products have earned that recognition: The Toyota Highlander and Toyota Venza.
Meeting the stringent IIHS criteria is a challenging task, as “Top Safety Pick” status is awarded only to vehicles that are equipped with electronic stability control and then receive the highest possible ratings in the IIHS’ front, side, rollover and rear-impact crash testing.
To achieve this, the Highlander and Venza, like all Toyota products, rely on a full complement of safety features and customer-protection technologies. These include multiple airbags, active front head restraints, electronic stability control, and much more. For example, standard on the Venza is Toyota’s STAR Safety System, which combines anti-lock brakes, electronic brake-force distribution, enhanced stability control, traction control and electronic brake assist features into one comprehensive vehicle safety package.
Toyota’s dedication to safety isn’t an end in itself, however, but an ongoing journey. The company continues to develop ever newer ways to build safer vehicles, as can be seen in the evolution of its Total HUman Model for Safety (THUMS).
This high-tech crash dummy was introduced in 1997 to provide highly detailed analysis of potential auto-accident injuries by using a highly detailed model of the human body’s skeletal structure and skin. The second version, launched in 2004, added a face and facial bones, while version three included a precise model of the human brain.
THUMS 4.0, announced in May, now offers carefully designed models of the body’s internal organs, and the automaker claims it provides 14 times more information about how the human body responds in an auto collision than the previous version.
Which is pretty darn smart for a dummy.
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