IIHS Safety Studies
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For decades, IIHS has been a leader in the science of road safety. Our research helps policymakers, safety professionals, vehicle manufacturers and the wider public understand what works and what doesn’t to prevent crashes from happening and to minimize injuries in the crashes that still occur. Explore our research on key highway safety issues below.
Airbags
Front and side airbags, lives saved by airbags, airbag injuries, airbag innovations
Auto insurance
Auto insurance basics, insurance loss trends, using loss data in safety research
Child safety
Child restraints, booster seats, backover and frontover crashes
Distracted driving
Cellphone use and crash risk, device laws, technologies to combat distraction
Headlights
Visibility and glare, LED headlamps, high-beam assist, adaptive high beams
Large trucks
Trucking regulations, fatigue, braking systems, underride
Motorcycles
Helmet laws, antilock braking systems, motorcycle types
Older drivers
Age and driving ability, age and injury risk, license renewal laws, vehicle technology
Red light running
Effectiveness of cameras, signal timing, communities using red light safety cameras
Roundabouts
Roundabouts and safety, traffic flow, public opinion, effect on older drivers
Seat belts
Why belts matter, state laws, reminders and interlocks
Speed
Dangers of speed, by the numbers, traffic calming, intelligent speed assistance
Teenagers
Teen crash risk, graduated driver licensing, vehicle choice, teens and alcohol
Fatality statistics
IIHS publishes annual statistical summaries of the motor vehicle safety picture. These are updated once a year, when the U.S. Department of Transportation releases new data.
State law information
To help inform our research, we closely monitor changes to state laws that affect road safety. Summaries are presented here for general information purposes.
Research bibliography
IIHS has been conducting research for more than 50 years. See a list of papers organized by subject. In many cases, full papers are available for download. Papers published in copyrighted publications are available upon request.