As a luxury car division, Acura is among the leading developers of new car safety features and driver assistance systems. If you want the best in safety, you need to buy a luxury vehicle, and Acura has plenty of features you won’t see anywhere else.
Jewel Eye LED Headlights
Recently, the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) has added headlight coverage to the list of features it tests along with forward collision prevention and crash safety. Good headlights need to be bright and clear for straightaways as well as curves both sharp and gentle, plus they need to avoid dazzling the eyes of oncoming drivers. Acura’s Jewel Eye headlights aren’t just a distinctive look with their rows of gem-shaped lights, they also earn good marks on the IIHS headlight test. They even come with an auto-dimming feature that turns off the high beams when a car approaches.
AcuraWatch
AcuraWatch isn’t a single driver assistance system. It’s a set of advanced features that either comes standard or as an available package depending on which model you choose. Adaptive Cruise Control uses a camera and a range-finding laser to find the direction and distance of the car ahead and can slow down and speed up to maintain a set distance. The Collision Mitigation Braking System uses the same sensors to detect when a forward collision might happen and will automatically begin applying the brakes during the split second it takes for a driver to notice the danger and move his or her foot.
Lane Keeping Assist uses cameras to detect road lines and other lane markers and can gently steer the vehicle back to the center of its lane if it detects you moving too far to one side without using your turn signal. Road Departure Mitigation does the same, but it watches for roadside features like mailboxes and trees to figure out where the pavement ends and the grass begins.
ACE Body Structure
Every sedan and SUV sold by Acura takes advantage of Acura’s Advanced Compatibility Engineering (ACE) body structure. This design involves using strong and weak beams and bracings throughout the frame to absorb as much crash energy as possible so the passenger cabin won’t have to. Thanks to special crumple zones and a rigid frame surrounding the passengers, the Acura vehicle will take the damage instead of its passengers.
The latest generation of ACE adds special braces to the front corners for narrow overlap collisions. This means all the collision energy hits one corner of the front instead of the entire front end, and these braces help move that energy to the rest of the front end.
Thanks to Acura’s safety innovations, the company has earned the distinction of being the first luxury brand to get a five-star overall rating from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) on every model across every vehicle that was reviewed. So if you want a luxury vehicle with a great safety record, you should find out what Acura has to offer.
The Acura lineup is full of safety-conscious choices, with the 2017 Acura MDX SUV AWD, 2017 Acura MDX SUV FWD, 2017 Acura ILX 4 DR FWD, 2017 Acura RDX SUV FWD, 2017 Acura RDX SUV AWD, 2017 Acura TLX 4 DR AWD, 2017 Acura TLX 4 DR FWD, 2017 Acura RLX 4 DR FWD, and 2017 Acura MDX Sport Hybrid SUV AWD have earned top ratings with 5-Star Overall Vehicle Scores from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). Government 5-Star Safety Ratings are part of the U.S. Department of Transportation’s New Car Assessment Program (www.safercar.gov). Model tested with standard side airbags (SAB).
Image via Pixabay.com
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