Volvo Drivers Find Vehicle Safety Tech Useful: Survey

Results from a new survey suggest that the vast majority of Volvo drivers use their vehicle’s safety features and find them useful.

Volvo holds a reputation for being an industry leader in vehicle safety technology, but a release from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) points out that safety systems aren’t particularly useful unless the drivers use them. IIHS recently conducted a survey of 500 Volvo owners whose vehicles had crash avoidance features.

“The majority of these drivers told us they like the crash avoidance technology in their vehicles,” IIHS senior vice president for research Anne McCartt said. “For the most part they are taking advantage of the systems, and many credit them with preventing crashes.”

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About half of the survey’s respondents said they use the car’s adaptive cruise control feature, which slows the car down to match speed with the vehicle ahead. While that isn’t a majority, 89 percent said they used the distance alert feature which warns the driver if a car is too close in front.

Lane departure warning, on the other hand, wasn’t very popular. The survey showed that drivers find it to be annoying because it is triggered too easily. For example, driving through a construction zone where cars pass over normally painted lines will trigger the system. Similarly, drivers who change lanes without a signal will hear the alarm.

A previous survey found that 69 percent of drivers left lane departure warning turned on in their Volvo and Infiniti vehicles, but that number, which only polled Volvo owners, dropped to 59 percent in the recent round of questions.