Five safety features you should look for in your first car

For many, their first set of wheels will be a used car. And although the temptation is to make a choice on street cred and in-cabin tech, there’s another factor that should be at the top of your selection criteria: safety.

Advancements in technology and safety systems mean new cars typically have better crash protection and driver assistance features.

That said, the decades-long focus on vehicle safety means there are many popular first cars now being sold used that look after their occupants and other road users.

Dr David Young is the TAC’s Manager Vehicle Safety, Innovation and Technology and he says buyers should consider safety in their first car purchase, new or used.

He points people to the TAC’s howsafeisyourcar.com.au website as a way to get an understanding of a vehicle’s safety systems and nominates five main features (below) that people should prioritise for a used car purchase – especially in the case of cars for young and/or inexperienced drivers.

“You can pretty quickly and easily look at the car you’re searching for [on the website] and see if it has those features,” says Dr Young.

He says as a general rule newer vehicles are likely to have better safety systems, although he cautions that commercial vehicles such as single- and dual-cab utes and vans often receive safety systems later than passenger vehicles of the same era.

“Commercial vehicles and utilities had the features fitted a little bit later, so you need to be careful when you’re looking at those vehicles.”

As the name suggests, autonomous or auto emergency braking can apply the brakes of the vehicle without any driver intervention.

Cars with AEB use a forward-facing camera and/or radar to determine if there is an object or another slower-moving vehicle or road user ahead that the vehicle is likely to strike. It can then alert the driver and, if the driver does not respond, automatically apply the brakes if a collision is imminent.

AEB is not a guarantee the vehicle will avoid a crash, but at the very least it will usually reduce its severity.

All of which is beneficial to occupants, according to Dr Young, who adds that big benefits of auto-braking systems are in preventing rear-end impact crashes.

Using a forward-facing camera (or sometimes multiple cameras), Lane Departure Warning (LDW) keeps an eye on lane markings and alerts the driver if they are wandering from their lane.

Lane Keep Assist (LKA) takes it a step further by proactively working to keep the car in its lane. It can do that by applying mild steering assistance or braking individual wheels to pull the car back into its lane.

Dr Young says LKA and LDW have big benefits, especially for those driving on higher-speed roads, especially in regional areas.

“We know that a lot of the trauma that we see on our roads is from people leaving the roadway,” he says.

“It could be due to inattention, fatigue or any kind of impairment and technologies like Lane Departure Warning or Lane Keep Assist are built into a car to help people in those instances.”

Being able to see what’s behind the car when you’re backing up is a huge advantage, and not just for avoiding an embarrassing carpark collision.

Kidsafe estimates seven Australian children under 15 are killed each year and another 60 are injured due to “driveway run over incidents”.

Some are because the driver could not see the child.

Reversing cameras can give visibility in the prime blind spot of the vehicle – directly behind it.

“Reversing cameras are extremely important because we know that people… can only look in one direction at one time,” says Dr Young, pointing to research the Monash University Accident Research Centre that suggests cameras and parking sensors can reduce pedestrian crashes by between 31-41 per cent.

“Reversing cameras go a long way to helping you be able to see those areas of the vehicle that are typically harder to see. But it’s also important to remember that these technologies aren’t substitute for looking and checking your surroundings before entering the car,” Dr Young stated.

A good tip for people buying a used car is that reversing cameras can easily and relatively inexpensively be retrofitted. Whereas most safety technology is embedded in the vehicle and sometimes part of its structure, a reversing camera can easily be added, sometimes for as little as a few hundred dollars.

Most people are familiar with airbags, even if there’s often a misunderstanding about how violent they can be on inflation.

An airbag rapidly inflates in a matter of milliseconds to provide a protective cushion between the vehicle occupants and the car’s interior or struck object.

Side curtain airbags arguably play an often overlooked but very important role because occupants have only a small amount of metal on either side of them to protect them in an impact.

“They do a huge amount,” says Dr Young of side curtain airbags.

“Side impact crashes account for around 22 per cent… of our major crash types, where people are killed or seriously injured and side airbags help to protect vehicle occupants in these types of crashes.”

Dr Young says the extra protection of an airbag can not only save lives but can also prevent serious injury, including brain injuries.

“These types of technologies really help with some of those huge life impacting injuries.”

Stability control, or ESC, has been given many acronyms by the marketing departments of various car-makers: VSC, DSC and ESP are all part of the mix – and there are many more.

They all do the same thing. Stability control monitors traction, the direction the car is travelling and where the driver is steering the vehicle. If it’s not pointing the way the driver is directing it, ESC can do what not even the world’s best drivers can: individually brake wheels to bring the car back under control.

ESC has been mandatory on passenger cars sold new in Australia for around a decade. We’d argue that perhaps above all items it’s a dealbreaker when buying a used car for a young or inexperienced driver.

“It is really built to help you stay on the road,” says Dr Young, adding that reducing single-vehicle crashes are its big benefit but that ESC can also play a role in reducing some types of multi-vehicle crashes.

“It’s extremely important in loss-of-control crashes… hit some water or ice… a change in the quality of the road… you can get the vehicle back on track and stay on the road and stay safe.”

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