The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration may soon reconfigure its ratings system slightly to take into account how certain subsets of the population might react during a crash. When a new automobile comes onto the market, the NHTSA rates it as part of something known as the New Car Assessment Program. Since 1978, a vehicle has been able to garner between one and five stars, and consumers can compare statistics between multiple vehicles to get a sense of the automobile that’s right for them. Now, though, the NHTSA wants to add a silver rating and a family rating to the existing standard. The former would designate whether the vehicle is safe for older drivers while the latter would concern how safe the vehicle is for children. It might take up to four years for these ratings to be rolled out.
For more about the proposed ratings, click here.