Crash and Learn: An Inside Look at the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS)

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Slide, Wednesdays with Woodward (registered trademark) A Webinar Series. Crash and Learn: An Inside Look at the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (I I H S). Logos for Travelers Institute, Travelers I I H S, H L D I. A woman appears in a video call at the top right corner of the slideshow 

(SPEECH) 
Hello, everyone. Good afternoon. Thank you for joining us today. My name is Joan Woodward, and I'm honored to lead the Travelers Institute, the public policy and thought leadership arm of Travelers Insurance. Today's program is part of our Wednesdays With Woodward, a series we started last year to explore issues impacting our personal and professional lives in these difficult and very uncertain times we're all living through. We're pleased you're here today, and we hope you'll really stay engaged with us. So you can join our mailing list, emailing institute@travelers.com. Connect with me directly on LinkedIn always. Or watch replays of our past webinars on travelersinstitute.org. 

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Slide, Connect, LinkedIn, Joan Kois Woodward. Hashtag Wednesdays with Woodward 

(SPEECH) 
So before we get started today, I want to quickly share our disclaimer about today's program. 

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Slide, About Travelers Institute Webinars. Wednesdays with Woodward is an educational webinar series presented by the Travelers Institute, the public policy division of Travelers. This program is offered for informational and educational purposes only. You should consult with your financial, legal, insurance or other advisors about any practices suggested by this program. Please note that this session is being recorded and may be used as Travelers deems appropriate. 

(SPEECH) 
We have a very special program for you today, and always we'll save time at the end to answer some of your questions. So don't wait till the end to submit your questions. Go ahead and do that using the Q&A function at the bottom of your screen. Check anonymously if you don't want me to read your name. 

So we're thrilled today to be joined by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety and the Highway Loss Data Institute, or HLDI, as our partners today. IIHS is an independent scientific and educational organization dedicated to reducing deaths, injuries, property damage, and motor vehicle crashes. And HLDI supports this mission through scientific studies and insurance data and publishes insurance loss results by the make and model of each vehicle. So that's very granular for us. They crash test vehicles in their Vehicle Research Center in Virginia to help consumers make informed decisions. 

I really had the pleasure of visiting this terrific research center, it's kind of in Central Virginia, along with my Travelers’ colleagues. And I have to say it was really an impressive setup they have, very expansive test tracks, and they support lifesaving work. So I'm excited today to bring this experience live virtually to all of you today. 

IIHS is truly instrumental in assessing the safety of new vehicles, including this new automated vehicle technology, which we're going to talk about today. 

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Slide, Travelers Institute Initiatives. Every Second Matters, a picture of a car on a road 

(SPEECH) 
Travelers is deeply committed to safety on our roadways, as many of you know, and the future of transportation. As part of this we have our Every Second Matters (registered trademark) Distracted Driving Awareness Initiative and our Insuring Autonomy Initiative. Combined, the Travelers Institute has held more than 100 events on these topic, live events. 

So please visit our website to get more information about that and to read our new position paper we just launched this winter. Insuring Autonomy, How Auto Insurance Will Lead Through Changing Risks. IIHS is supported by Travelers and all of the insurance industry, and Travelers is really proud to have been a member company since 2005, sharing our data to support their research and promoting their findings through safety messaging. 

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Slide, Speakers. Pictures of Joan Woodward, Executive Vice President, Public Policy & President, Travelers Institute, Moderator,  Dr. David Harkey, President Insurance Institute for Highway Safety and the Highway Loss Data Institute, Speaker, Dr. Drew Woods, Vice President, Research and Development, Personal Lines, Travelers, Speaker. 

(SPEECH) 
Today we're going to hear from their President, Dr. David Harkey, a position he is held from since 2018. Prior to joining IIHS, David led the University of North Carolina Highway Safety Research Center for 11 years. David's own research has focused on improving roadway design and operations for all users, including motorists, pedestrians, and bicyclists. Then today we're going to hear from Dr. Drew Woods, who is Vice President of Personal Insurance Research and Development at Travelers. He leads Travelers analytics and a team that supports auto, homeowner's insurance pricing, marketing, client retention, sales and service. Drew also represents Travelers on the board of IIHS and in fact was a past Board Chair of HLDI. 

So we have lots of videos and interesting content for you today. And like with all these webinars, we hope our technology holds up. So let's get right underway with Dr. David Harkey. Welcome and thank you for being here. 

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Dr. Harkey and Dr. Woods join Joan on the video call 

(SPEECH) 
Thank you, Joan, I appreciate it very much. And I want to thank Travelers for the opportunity to present today. 

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Slide, What makes a Top Safety Pick? Travelers Institute. March 3, 2021. David Harkey, President. I I H S dot org 

(SPEECH) 
All right. OK. So I'm going to spend most of the time today talking about our top safety pick program, which is our consumer evaluation program, but I'll touch on a few other things as we go through this. And as Joan said, we've got lots of videos. So hopefully we'll be able to get through the videos without too much going wrong here. 

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Slide, Saving Lives. Preventing Harm. A mission statement:  To reduce deaths, injuries, and property damage from motor vehicle crashes through research and evaluation, and through education of consumers, policymakers and practitioners. 

(SPEECH) 
As Joan said, a lot of what we're about when you look at our mission statement is very much saving lives, preventing harm. And if you think about what we do at the Institute, we have a research program and we have an evaluation program. And we take what we learn in those two programs and we try to educate, whether it be consumers thinking about purchasing a new vehicle, policymakers putting laws into effect, or practitioners that may be designing roadways or the auto industry who are building vehicles. And so all of this is really important as we think about what our research program entails. 

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Slide, Systems Thinking, a bullet point list:  Human-centric, Shared responsibility, Safety redundancies, Speed must be addressed. 

(SPEECH) 
One of the things that I've done since I've gotten to the Institute is to try and get our staff to think more systematically, apply systems thinking to the problems and challenges we face in road safety. We're putting the driver, the occupant, the pedestrian, the bicyclist at the center of that and thinking about how we prevent harm and prevent fatalities to that road user. And we have a variety of research that we conduct. We have infrastructure research, behavioral research on individuals. Obviously vehicle research that we're going to talk about today. But we also do work in areas of emergency response. And then speed is an integral part, because it affects the likelihood of getting in a crash and it affects the likelihood of being injured in a crash. We'll have a chance to come back to that a little later. 

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Slide, T S P 2021 initial release, a screenshot of a news broadcast. Text, Consumer Alert 

(SPEECH) 
One of the things that's really important as part of our communications program is earned media. And so one of the things we try to do with a lot of our research is to get the message out there through earned media. This is an example from our top safety pick release. This was just this past week. And it'll show you how we use the media to get message out about safe vehicles. 

[VIDEO PLAYBACK] 

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The broadcast plays. A white S U V drives slowly down a road. The car stops, with the reporter behind the wheel. Text, Steve Sbraccia 

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When it comes to top safety picks, the Institute has several criteria. 

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Videos pop up showing a car in a test crash, a car at night, and a car stopping suddenly 

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One, crashworthiness. Two, effective headlights. And three, the ability to stop a forward-facing collision. And this year more cars than ever have met that standard. 

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Dr. Harkey appears on the broadcast 

(SPEECH) 
90 vehicles that are award winners, and there's something there for every consumer. 

This year more automakers have their vehicles make the list because of improved headlights, which are becoming a standard feature no matter which model you choose. 

It's something we've been pushing for, because that makes it less confusing for consumers when they go to purchase a vehicle and are looking for specific headlights. 

One automaker earned more awards than any other. Hyundai Motors, which includes Genesis, Hyundai, and the Kia lines. They have 17 vehicles which made the cut. 

[END PLAYBACK] 

And so this idea of using earned media to get our message across has been around since we started the program. So the origins of this are all the way back to the 1990s, the early 1990s when we rolled out what we call the moderate overlap test. At that time and even today, the government test involved frontal crash tests. Involves a vehicle, full front of the vehicle hitting a wall. And what we started to look at was those aren't how most real frontal crashes occur in the world. I mean, most of them, only a portion of that vehicle hits something. And so we rolled out what was called a moderate overlap test [INAUDIBLE] our new car assessment program. 

[VIDEO PLAYBACK] 

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A video plays. The front half of a car crashes into a barrier. A reporter stands in front of a screen, watching a replay of the video 

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What you just saw and what you're watching again now in slow motion are the first pictures ever released to the public of an entirely new kind of automobile safety test, very different from the test the government is currently using to measure safety and with very different results. What that means to you is that your car may not be as safe as you think. Tonight Lee Thompson has an exclusive report on the results of this new test. Take a look and see how your car did. 

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A car slams into a barrier. The hood of the car crumples, and the crash test dummy in the driver's seat hits the air bag 

(SPEECH) 
Once again, this is how the government tests looks. 

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A man sits in front of a crashed car 

(SPEECH) 
This is the same car you just saw in the government test and our test, the Mitsubishi Galant. Look at the difference in its performance. 

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In the second test, the hood and passenger area of the car crumple. The crash test dummy falls forward and to the side 

(SPEECH) 
[GASPS] 

Incredible. 

All of the cars are doing well in the government test now, but they're not all doing well in this test. 

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Slide, Occupant Protection 

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And so that's what really launched us into the consumer evaluation program that we have today very much focused on occupant protection. 

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Slide, I I H S crash testing programs, a timeline with pictures of crashed cars 

(SPEECH) 
So since we added that moderate overlap test in 1995, we've subsequently now have a side impact crash test. We have a rear crash test where we look at whiplash mitigation issues. We also measure the roof strength of a vehicle. And then this past decade, we've added two more frontal crash tests that we call small overlap tests where an even smaller portion of the front of the vehicle is striking an object. 

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Slide, still images of two crash test videos, one labeled P and one labeled G 

(SPEECH) 
And so these are all the tests that we run today. 

And the way we evaluate the success or the performance of a vehicle ranges from good to poor. And you'll see in this video clip what makes the difference between a good and a poor vehicle. And 

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The video plays. The video labeled P shows the front half of the car collapsing, while the video labeled G shows only the hood of the car being crushed 

(SPEECH) 
it's about the structural integrity of the occupant compartment. That's a big piece of what we measure. 

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A video plays from the perspective of the crash test dummies. The dummy in the P video moves around the seat, while the dummy in the G video hits the airbag and bounces back 

(SPEECH) 
And it's also about the likelihood of injury to the driver or the occupant of the vehicle. You can see in this particular video clip here from inside that a good vehicle encapsulates with those two airbags the driver's head, whereas in that poor vehicle, the driver's head slips between the airbags and actually strikes the vehicle and very likely have some sort of injury. And so these are the kinds of things that we measure to determine the rating of a vehicle. 

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Slide, 2020 to 2022 Top Safety Pick Requirements, a list:  Moderate overlap front, Driver-side small overlap front, Passenger side small overlap front; Side, Roof strength, Head restraint 

(SPEECH) 
Currently all of the vehicles that we test in order to qualify for either of our awards, top safety pick or top safety pick plus, you've got to achieve a good rating, our best rating in all six of our crashworthiness tests. 

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Slide, Crash protection ratings by model year, Improvements beginning in 1995 six bar graphs, Moderate overlap front, Roof strength, Side impact, Small overlap front: driver side, Head restraints and seats, Small overlap front: passenger side 

(SPEECH) 
One of the things that's really important is that automakers have responded to the tests that we have in place. And what this particular slide shows is that over time, they improve. The number of vehicles that we start out testing for a particular test, there's not that many good vehicles. And then over time it improves. And we haven't seen a less than good performer in the moderate overlap test in several years now. 

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Slide, Death and injury reductions for good versus poor rating, IIHS crashworthiness tests, statistics and pictures of crashed cars and a test dummy:  Front moderate overlap, beginning 1995 – Fatality risk in head-on crashes is 46 percent lower, Side impact beginning 2003 – Fatality risk in side impact crashes 70 percent lower in addition to the benefit of adding side airbag protection for the head, Rear crash (whiplash mitigation beginning 2004 – Neck injury risk in rear crashes as 15 percent lower.  Risk of neck injury requiring 3plus months treatment is 35 percent lower. 

(SPEECH) 
It's also important that we take a look at how our test and how our vehicle ratings compare to what's happening in the real world. So we will circle back periodically and look at real world crash data and we will compare the fatality risk of being in a good vehicle versus a poor vehicle for certain kinds of crash that are essentially simulated by the types of tests that we do. And so if we look at fatality risk of being in a head on collision, for example, if you look at our good versus poor moderate overlap test, you're 46% less likely to be fatally injured in a good vehicle versus a poor vehicle. So these kinds things are really important to make sure that we're on target with the way that our consumer evaluation program is running. 

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A video plays. Cars carrying crash test dummies slam into a barrier one at a time. The hood and passenger areas of the cars collapse 

(SPEECH) 
These are some of the early overlap tests that we run. You'll see these are all poor performers. This is probably the first, I would say, five, six years of IIHS's program with the moderate overlap test. You can see doors opening. You can see roofs buckling. You can see partial ejections. This is not the way you want to see a vehicle perform in a real world crash or in our crash test. 

Compare that to where we are today. This is the Genesis 2021 GV80. This is the vehicle that Tiger Woods was in during his crash last week. We happened to be in the middle of testing this vehicle when all of this was occurring last week. And so we've had this vehicle at our facility now for a few weeks. This is the driver side small overlap test. 

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A new video plays. The car hits the barrier. The hood crumples as airbags fill the entire vehicle. 

(SPEECH) 
One of the things that you will see in this test is how the driver compartment remained intact. It did not collapse in any way. The roof remained intact. And so this is one of the things that we're looking for when we evaluate these tests. 

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Slide, Collision Avoidance 

(SPEECH) 
The other thing that we've added to the mix now is collision avoidance. And so this is part of our consumer evaluation program suite of tests and our top safety pick criteria as well. 

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Slide, 2020 to 2022 Top Safety Pick Requirements, a list:  Test, Moderate overlap front, Driver -side small overlap front, Passenger side small overlap front, Side, Roof strength, Head restraint 

(SPEECH) 
And if you look, what we have are three tests, really, one on vehicle to vehicle front crash prevention, one on vehicle to pedestrian front crash prevention and then a headlight test. And I'll talk about the headlights in just a second. 

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Slide, Speed reduction in 12 and 24 mile per hour tests. A grid of videos plays, showing different cars stopping suddenly in front of a barrier. Some of the cars hit the barrier, while others stop before impact 

(SPEECH) 
In our vehicle to vehicle front crash prevention, the way we test this, we run vehicles at two speeds, 12 and 24 miles per hour, and we determine how much speed they scrub off before they strike the target that you see here on your screen. And in this case, it's the Subaru Outback that gets the most points and gets the superior rating because it scrubs off all the speed, comes to a complete stop, does not strike the target, which is what we're looking for. 

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Slide, Logos of several car companies 

(SPEECH) 
Automakers are making huge strides in terms of putting automatic emergency braking systems on their vehicles. And this was in part due to a voluntary agreement that we helped broker with NHTSA and the automakers [INAUDIBLE] at least 95% of their fleets outfitted with a standard AEB by 2022. 

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Slide, Front crash prevention ratings, a bar graph 

(SPEECH) 
And we're seeing that in our test. If you look at where we were in 2013, the number of vehicles that had superior advanced ratings and where we are in 2019. 

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Slide, US pedestrian fatalities, a line graph that trends steadily downwards, then rises sharply 

(SPEECH) 
Pedestrian fatalities continue to grow, continue to be a problem. And this is why we've added pedestrian front crash prevention to the mix of things that we want to evaluate. Pedestrian fatalities have grown by 50% in the last decade in the United States. 

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Slide, Pedestrian test scenarios, three drawings depicting a person in front of a car 

(SPEECH) 
So we added three tests. A adult walking across the road, a child coming across the road, an adult walking along the road. These three tests account for the majority of the pedestrian fatalities that occur in the US. And so if we can address these problems, we can address a lot of the pedestrian problem that we have. 

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Slide, Child running from the right side, a still image from a video 

(SPEECH) 
This is a clip of a vehicle that doesn't perform well. This is the hardest test. You've got the child coming out from behind two vehicles. 

(DESCRIPTION) 
The video plays. A crash test robot walks into the road. A car hits the robot, and the robot flies into the air 

(SPEECH) 
So you have very little time for the vehicle to see the pedestrian and then respond. But there are vehicles that do it and do it well. This is not one of those and it got no credit in our particular test. 

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Slide, Headlight Evaluations, pictures of two magazine covers:  Status Report, In the dark, Status Report, Night vision 

(SPEECH) 
Headlights are probably one of the most overlooked safety features that we have on the vehicle sometimes. Yeah, almost half of the crashes that we see in the US occur at night or at dawn or at dusk. And so we started evaluating headlights a few years ago because we knew how important it was in terms of being a safety feature. 

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Slide, Dynamic headlight test setup, a bullet point list and pictures of a track. Vehicle approaches: 500 ft radius left and right curves at 40 miles per hour, 800 ft radius left and right curves at 50 miles per hours, Straightway at 40 miles per hour, Record illuminance readings for:  Visibility, edges of road at 10 inc. above ground, Glare, center of oncoming lane, 3ft 7 inches. 

(SPEECH) 
We have a headlight test set up on our track that has two curves to the right, two curves to the left, and a straight away. We measure how much light is cast down the roadway for the driver, at the same time measuring how much glare there is for the oncoming driver, the latter being a negative. 

And so one of the things that we are trying to do is to encourage more and more headlights to be good and acceptable headlights, to be standard equipment on all vehicles. That's the differentiation between having a TSP Plus versus just a TSP. If you offer a good or acceptable headlight across all of your trim levels, you get into that Plus category right now. 

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Slide, Headlight ratings as of 10 14 2020, 2016-20 model years, all headlight variants, a bar graph 

(SPEECH) 
And again, we're seeing improvements. We're seeing automakers respond to this. And we've got a lot more vehicles now that have good or acceptable headlights than we had a few years ago when we started this test. 

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Slide, Room for Improvement 

(SPEECH) 
There's always room for improvement, and I'll touch on three things very quickly. 

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Slide, Percent difference in risk of fatal injury for rear versus front by vehicle model year, a bar graph 

(SPEECH) 
Rear occupants. When we look at frontal crash tests, one of the things that we've seen over time is that there's been a shift in fatality risk when you look at the rear seat versus the front seat. And it used to be that the rear seat was always considered to be the safer place to be in the vehicle. If you look at this graph and our evaluation of real crash data, what we see is that the front seat has become safer. Now, this doesn't mean that the rear seat is not safe any longer. 

What it shows us that the front seat is where we're putting all the technology. It's where we put in pretensioners and load limiters and the seat belts. It's where we've added all the airbags. And so the fatality risk has shifted from being in the front seat to now being in the rear seat. 

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Slide, Unfavorable occupant kinematics, Submarining behavior. A video plays, showing two crash test dummies in the back seat of a car. The dummies, restrained by seatbelts, fly forward on impact, their arms outstretched and their heads dropping down 

(SPEECH) 
So we think this is one of the reasons it's time to look at what's happening in the rear seat. We've been running a series of research tests with different sized dummies in different positions and trying to figure out what would be an appropriate way for us to test the protection of that rear seat occupant in our test. 

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Slide, T S P 2023 protocol, two pictures of test dummies in cars 

(SPEECH) 
And so what we've settled on that will roll out for TSP 2023 is a Hybrid III, what we call a Hybrid III 5th percentile female that will be sitting behind the driver's seat as part of our moderate overlap test. 

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Slide, Don't forget the diversity in rear seat occupants, a picture of a baby in a car seat 

(SPEECH) 
We also have to remember the rear seat is where you have a lot of diversity in occupants. So anything that you install to do well in our tests, you don't want to put any of those diverse occupants at risk. And that's going to be something for the automakers to remember as we move forward. 

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Slide, Side impact ratings: crash tests and field data, two bar graphs 

(SPEECH) 
Success of side impact test has been tremendous. You have, like I said, a 70% lower fatality risk of being fatally injured in one of these crashes in a good vehicle versus a poor rated vehicle. Yet it is still the case that almost 25% of the fatalities that occur in the real world occur in good rated vehicles. We know there's room for improvement. 

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Slide, Research testing, IIHS barrier, SUV and Pickup 1900-2200 KG and 50 km/h 

(SPEECH) 
One of the things that we know is the amount of energy that we generate in our test doesn't match the amount of energy that we're seeing in real world crashes. Part of this is due to the fact that our barrier was somewhat underweight at 1,500 kilograms when we introduced this test in 2003. And the speed that we were using at that time was 50 kilometers per hour. Well, vehicles have gotten a lot bigger. We have a lot more SUVs. We have a lot more pickup trucks in our fleet now. And so we're moving to a bigger barrier and we're also testing at a higher speed. 

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Slide, Research Test. A video plays, showing a Ford F 1 50 slamming into the side of a Toyota Camry 

(SPEECH) 
This is one of those research tests that we ran when we were trying to figure out what we were going to do with this particular test. So Toyota Camry. It performs really well in our current tests. It performed reasonably well in this test. And so we know the automakers can design vehicles that will do well in this test moving forward. 

(DESCRIPTION) 
Slide, Impact pattern of higher severity crash, a picture of a side impact – MDB vs SUV 

(SPEECH) 
We will be introducing this, again, as part of our 2023 test protocols and at a higher speed, higher mass. 

(DESCRIPTION) 
Slide, T S P 2023 protocol, pictures of crashed cars, dummies, and barriers. New slide, Restraint use in the U S, 1983 to 2017, a line graph 

(SPEECH) 
And then finally, seatbelts. Almost half the fatalities that occur in passenger vehicles are unbelted occupants. This is a problem that we've struggled with for a long time, we continue to struggle with. So how can we get more people to buckle up? 

(DESCRIPTION) 
Slide, Persistent seat belt reminders are effective for increasing seat belt use, a bar graph 

(SPEECH) 
We've been doing research to try and figure this out. And what we think is going to be effective is simply extending the chime, the reminder to buckle up your seatbelt for a longer period of time than is currently used in the US. It works as well as some of the physical mechanisms, such as shift locks and speed limiters. And so we think this is an easy way for the automakers to address this. And so we will also be introducing these kinds of ratings as we move forward in our TSP 2023 criteria. 

(DESCRIPTION) 
Slide, Exploratory seat belt reminder system ratings, a list. New slide, 2023 Top Safety Pick requirements, a list. New slide, Thinking ahead 

(SPEECH) 
So thinking ahead, where are we going in the future? 

(DESCRIPTION) 
Slide, 2019 common vehicles horsepower, a list with pictures 

(SPEECH) 
And I think there's a few things we have to consider and think about. I want to come back to speed. Horsepower is very different now than it was 10 years ago, 20 years ago, 30 years ago. When we introduced this program almost a quarter century ago, the amount of horsepower you had in the vehicle then compared to where we are now is greatly different. 

And so one of the things that we need to think about is should we consider horsepower as something that we want to factor into our consumer evaluation program? 

(DESCRIPTION) 
Slide, Money for something, a picture of a sales poster 

(SPEECH) 
We know horsepower sells. Automakers still use it to sell vehicles. This was an ad from a couple of years ago when you saw the Dodge Challenger. If you bought a 300 horsepower version of this vehicle, you got $3,000 back. If you bought the 800 horsepower version of this vehicle, you got $8,000 back. 

(DESCRIPTION) 
Slide, In contrast, a picture of a Volvo 

(SPEECH) 
But there are automakers that are going in the opposite direction. And so Volvo, not surprisingly, as part of their Vision 2020 effort has capped the speed of their vehicles to 112 miles per hour. Now needless to say, we don't need to be driving 112 miles per hour. But it's a start, as was stated by the CEO of Volvo. And if it saves one life, it's worth doing. And so I do think there is some consciousness out there on the part of the auto industry to try and address some of these challenges moving forward. 

(DESCRIPTION) 
Slide, Electric vehicles, pictures of three cars 

(SPEECH) 
Electric vehicles are here now. There are going to be more of them in the future. They have an incredible amount of torque, an incredible amount of acceleration. Do we need to think about what that means in terms of our consumer evaluation program? 

(DESCRIPTION) 
Slide, Seating configurations, three pictures of people in cars 

(SPEECH) 
And then way off in the future, we are going to have to consider possibly [INAUDIBLE] these alternative seating configurations that may be part of the autonomous vehicle fleet in the future and what that will mean for how you protect the occupant in a crash. And there's a lot of work that'll have to be done here. 

(DESCRIPTION) 
Slide, Technology, a picture of a magazine cover and pictures of cars 

(SPEECH) 
And then finally, technology. Technology is always going to be an important piece of what we look at now, whether it's collision avoidance, such as automatic emergency braking systems that I was referring to, or it's things like intelligent speed assistance, which is available in Europe but not here yet, or passive alcohol sensors that actually may become a reality in production vehicles within the next decade. All of these things are going to be important for us to continue to focus on as we think about how we assess vehicles and how we award manufacturers for building safe vehicles. 

(DESCRIPTION) 
Slide, More information at I I H S dot org and on our social channels. Facebook dot com slash I I H S dot org. Twitter and Instagram, at I I H S underscore auto safety. YouTube, I I H S 

(SPEECH) 
And with that, I will stop and turn it back over to Joan. Thank you. 

(DESCRIPTION) 
Joan and Dr. Drew Woods reappear on the call 

(SPEECH) 
Thanks, David. We're going to go right to Drew. Dr. Drew. 

Thanks, Joan and thanks, David. I am going to introduce myself again. So I run the data science team for personal insurance at Travelers. But another role that I play is, as Joan mentioned, representing Travelers on the board of directors for IIHS and HLDI. And I've got to say, it's an honor to do so, because you can see from David's presentation how valuable the work is. 

The challenge is, though, that the work that they do presents another challenge for me in my job at Travelers, which is pricing auto insurance. So one of the things that we need to be able to take into account is how to price all these different features as the vehicles are constantly evolving. The sensors, the bumpers, the types of accidents, everything changes constantly because of the evolving technology and the vehicles. 

So the one thing that enables IIHS to do their work is that the insurance carriers, do remember, companies contribute data to the Institute, some of our data to the Institute, so that they can do analysis of insurance losses. They also distribute that data back to us, the member companies, so that we can do analysis on it. And if we look at the information that they have, if we can go to the next slide, there are about 200 million or more than 200 million private passenger vehicles insured in the US. 

(DESCRIPTION) 
Slide, HLDI Data volume, a map of the US and a pie chart 

(SPEECH) 
The data that HLDI collects from its member companies represents about 80% of that volume. When you look at an individual member company like Travelers, Travelers, for example, has about 3% of that volume. So no company, there are obviously companies in the US that are bigger than Travelers, but no company has nearly the volume that HLDI does. 

So why does that really matter? Moving on to the next slide. 

(DESCRIPTION) 
Slide continued, two bullet point lists 

(SPEECH) 
Just think about it from the perspective that Travelers is largely a Northeast company and has been for a long time. When you look at the data that we have available to do analysis for Connecticut, HLDI still has 10 times our data volume. But when you start moving west across the country in Colorado, HLDI has 20 times our data volume. And on the West Coast, Washington state, for example, HLDI has 40 times our volume. So we are able to create the territory level pricing within the state of Connecticut, Colorado, and the rest of the country much more accurately using the HLDI data in combination with our own. 

And then likewise, as new technology is introduced into the vehicle fleet, for example, David talked about electric vehicles, Travelers insures a few thousand electric vehicles. It's interesting, though, you can look at the HLDI data and see that a lot of the Teslas are actually in California. We don't have as big a penetration in California, another West Coast state. HLDI has much more data. By my calculation, roughly a million and a half electric vehicles compared to the few thousand that we have. So for the Tesla Model S and Chevy Volt in particular, HLDI has about 25 times our data volume. So for those individual pricing, individual vehicle pricing levels that we want to create within my group, we get a lot of help from the HLDI data as well. 

The other thing that the HLDI data can tell us is, and a lot of the slides I'm going to cover now are based on HLDI analysis, but moving to the next slide, we can get a view into how does this evolving technology actually influence insurance losses. 

(DESCRIPTION) 
Slide, Estimated collision and P D L losses, a bar graph 

(SPEECH) 
So level setting on what these bars mean. So there's two colors, collision and PDL. Collision is blue. PDL is green. So these are two separate auto coverages. Collision is if you're driving a car and you crash and it's your fault, collision pays for the damage to your vehicle. If you crashed into someone else's car and it's your fault, property damage liability covers the repairs to their vehicle. 

So you can see that for electric vehicles, the frequencies for both collision and PDL are 20%, 15% lower versus their standard internal combustion counterparts. These examples are relative to the standard counterparts. The severities are not nearly as different. And if you look at the smaller bars there that are close to if not crossing the 0, that means that those estimates aren't really statistically significant. So with this data anyway, it's a little bit too early to make a call on whether they cost more. 

You might imagine that electric vehicles tend to have more technology in them, so they might be a little bit more expensive to repair. We'll see how that number evolves over time. But all in all when you combine how often crashes occur and how severe they are when they do occur, the average losses for electric vehicles are 15% to 20% lower for electric vehicles versus their gasoline counterparts based on this analysis. 

So we have this insight about electric vehicles much sooner than we would have based on our own data or at least we have a much more credible view for these insights. And again, this data goes back into the way that we price electric vehicles when we write insurance for electric vehicle owners. 

Moving on to the next slide. 

(DESCRIPTION) 
Slide, Most Advanced Driver Assistance Systems living up to expectations, a bar graph 

(SPEECH) 
David talked a lot about some of the advanced driver assistance systems and how the Institutes are testing those. They're also looking at our data and making evaluations about the insurance losses. Again, especially as this technology emerges and evolves so quickly, it's hard for any carrier in the US to have enough data on their own to really have a solid opinion of what is the impact on insurance losses. 

But based on the 80% of the market that we have with HLDI, we can see when you're looking again at how often do claims happen thinking specifically about the forward collision warning, the set of bars on the far left, and the forward collision warning with braking, you can see that there is a material impact. Again, collision and PDL are the first two, the gray and yellow bars. And you can see that there's a 10% to 12% impact on those. So we can see that these systems are actually living up to expectations and having an effect on real world results. 

(DESCRIPTION) 
Slide, Predicted registered vehicles by feature by calendar, autobrake, adaptive headlights, blind spot warning, lane departure warning, parking sensors, rearview camera, a bar graph 

(SPEECH) 
Moving on to the next slide. I think that this is something that really is valuable that HLDI has access to many, many years of insurance data and can see how the technology and advancements have evolved through the fleet of private passenger vehicles in the US. For example, when airbags came back, they could see how many years it took for airbags to make their way through most of the registered vehicles. And that's exactly what this view is about. So thinking about vehicles with automatic emergency braking systems or auto brake, how long will it take before 90% of the fleet in the US has that feature? 

So David mentioned that the manufacturers have voluntarily agreed that by model year 2022, most of their vehicles will have those features. But even with that, it's going to be close to another 20 years before you get to close to 90% penetration of the fleet. So again, when we think about how is this going to impact our business going forward, these kinds of analyses and projections forward give us a good view into how we should be thinking about reacting within the way that we price our business. 

(DESCRIPTION) 
Slide, On-road test for older drivers in Illinois, a bullet point list and a bar graph, Illinois is the only state with a mandatory on-road driving test for older drivers, When drivers 75 and older renew their license, they must take a test, Differences in frequencies were evaluated between the older driver age groups and drivers aged 55-74, Older drivers in Illinois have lower claim frequencies than those in comparable states 

(SPEECH) 
And then moving on to the next slide, I think that it's also really interesting from a public policy perspective that when states make changes to the way that they enforce something like graduated driver's licensing for teenage drivers or how you evaluate older drivers and whether or not they're safe to be on the road still, the insurance data that we share with HLDI can give a lot of insight into impacts of those types of changes. So for example, Illinois instituted a mandatory on road driving test for older drivers in order for them to maintain their licenses. So once they turn 75 and older to renew their license, they have to take an on road driving test. 

So this chart shows the differences between drivers that are 75 and older versus the drivers in Illinois there in the age group from 55 to 74. And you can see for the coverages and for the age groups that are statistically significant, the impact is actually that the 75-year-old drivers who are still on the road post this policy change are better drivers than the 55 to 74-year-old group. So this is not what you see in other states. 

And other states, and historically in Illinois, you can see that the older drivers get-- more frequently they have accidents or are involved in crashes. So the Illinois change has taken the most dangerous of those drivers off the road and prevented a lot of really bad situations. So there are other examples where HLDI has been able to take changes in public policy and evaluate what were the real world impacts of those changes using the insurance data. And I will end there. 

(DESCRIPTION) 
Joan and Dr. Harkey rejoin the call 

(SPEECH) 
OK, Drew, thank you so much for that. And of course, David, that was really just fascinating to kind of hear your perspective and how you work with the auto manufacturers as well as the insurers. So we appreciate that. 

When I was at the test facility about a year or so ago, I think I was in a Subaru and did the automatic emergency braking against that kind of foam wall. It was such a powerful experience there. Drew, you've been on the board for a number of years. Help our audience members who haven't had the opportunity yet to get there. What's it like watching these crash tests for you? 

So I think someone once described being a fighter pilot and getting in a dogfight as something like 60 minutes of boredom followed by a minute of sheer terror. I wouldn't say it's quite that extreme, but it's something along those lines. There's quite a buildup as you walk up onto the platform to be able to observe the test. There's a timer counting down for how long it takes them to charge up the system. The vehicle is typically sitting down a long, long hallway so that it has a chance to gather speed as it's coming into the crash hall. 

So eventually once the counter counts down and the vehicle starts, you can hear it. You can hear it coming, and it takes a while and it's building up. And then all of a sudden, everything just happens in an instant. And I think you feel it as much as hear it and see it. And the thing that struck me most, I think, after my first example was how long you heard pieces of the vehicles hitting the ground after the test, because the test was so violent. And it was really an eye opening experience for me. 

Thank you. Thank you, Drew. So David, I want to go to you, because you talked a lot about working with the auto manufacturers and the auto industry. And so tell us what IIHS is doing. You're completely independent of the auto insurance and auto industry, the manufacturers. How do you influence them? How do you talk to them about your data, your research? I assume a lot of them come to your facility every year. They're obviously giving you cars every single year to test. And how many do you test every year? Every make, every model? Give us a sense of your relationship with the auto manufacturers. 

Yeah, that's a great question. And you would think that that relationship might be a little contentious. We're evaluating their products and they may not like what we're doing. And there's certainly some of that at times. But it's a very actual collaborative relationship, in the sense of they want to produce safe cars as much as we want them to produce safe cars. So in that regard, it's very collaborative. And we share a lot. We have meetings with them, most of the manufacturers, at least annually. 

And they're at our facility whenever we're testing their vehicles in non-pandemic times. And so they interact with us quite often. We go visit their facilities about once every three years. We make a big trip to see their facilities and meet with them on their sites. And so it really is this collaborative effort where they're trying to learn from us, we're trying to learn from them, where they're going and what their plans are, and trying to move the industry forward in terms of safety. 

We currently crash somewhere around 100 vehicles per year. So we're running about two tests, crash tests, per week. Plus all of the collision avoidance testing we're doing and all of the headlight testing we're doing on our track. And so there's a large number of tests that we're conducting on a weekly basis. 

Thank you for that.  One of the things, thank you for that, one of the things I really found interesting is how you acquire these cars. So does the manufacturer--let our audience know how you get them. Does the manufacture just bring them to you or how do you acquire them? 

Yeah, no, we do not want the automakers bringing us the vehicles. I mean, one of the things that we do to maintain our independence is we purchase the vehicles off of car lots just like a consumer would. And sometimes it's hard to find the specific vehicles with specific features that we want. And so we'll sometimes work with our dealerships. They'll get vehicles on the West coast and we'll have them shipped to our facility. But yeah, we are a consumer just like everyone else when it comes to purchasing vehicles that we will then run through our tests. 

I think that's really an important part for people to understand is you get them independently. You go to a lot and a dealership. So I think that's important. So David, I know you have one more video for us. And there's some interesting context around how you choose the speeds at which you crash vehicles. So can you talk to us about the speeds and maybe show your video? 

Yeah, and I don't know, Katie, if you've got this one cued up. Ah, look at that. 

(DESCRIPTION) 
Still image from the video showing two cars driving towards a test barrier 

(SPEECH) 
Why should I ask? I will set this up, and then I'll let her play it. So what this is is we did a demonstration project with AAA recently where we were talking about the importance of speed and how do we show the consumer, how do we show the public, how do we show policymakers the impact of speed when it comes to protecting you in a crash and how small changes in speed can result in substantial changes in the likelihood that you're going to be injured. And so go ahead and run this, Katie. 

(DESCRIPTION) 
The cars hit the barrier. The hoods of both cars crumple 

(SPEECH) 
And what you're going to see is the 40 miles per hour is what we run our moderate overlap test at at the facility. We also ran in this test one at 50 miles per hour. And you can see at 54% more energy. And then we ran it at 56 miles per hour. 95% more energy in that crash. 

(DESCRIPTION) 
A new video plays, showing the crash from inside the car. The test dummy in the 40 mile per hour crash hits the airbag in the middle, while the dummy in the 50 mile per hour crash swerves and sways 

(SPEECH) 
And now you get to see the same thing from inside the vehicle. And so you can see the head protected at 40. You can see what happens at 54. Much more severe impact. And then what happens at 56 miles per hour and the amount of impact that you have. 

And what we saw was at 56 miles per hour, you're much more likely to have had facial injuries, possible brain injury, leg fractures compared to at 40 miles per hour. And so it's really important for people to understand small changes in speed can have dramatic results in terms of changing your likelihood of being injured. And that's the message we were trying to cross to [INAUDIBLE] some more tests that we're hoping to do during this year same time. But it's really critical [INAUDIBLE] that speed plays, like I said earlier, in terms of getting you into a crash to start with and then likelihood of being injured. 

Yeah, that's a great point. And a lot of us, we all know, unfortunately, a lot of states have raised the speed limit. But folks out there, you don't have to go that higher speed limit if it's been raised in your state. Be safe always and be under the speed limit. And it was interesting, back to you David, talking about the-- if you want to spend a second here. You were you were test crashing the Hyundai SUV that Tiger Woods was driving just you said in the past few weeks and it performed quite well. Is that what your research results have given so far? 

Yeah. [INAUDIBLE] last couple years. [INAUDIBLE] And the Genesis brand, which is their luxury brand, has performed quite well. And from the tests that we've run to date on that particular [INAUDIBLE] the top safety pick plus winner [INAUDIBLE] come out with the results later this month. But yeah, it was just pure chance that we were in the middle of testing that vehicle. 

And I said to our folks once that crash occurred and Tiger Woods was able to come away from that without any more severe injuries than he had, we could stop testing. That was such a violent collision. And you saw how well that vehicle held up with regards to the roof strength, with regards to the way the airbag system worked. It really did create that survivable space for him inside the vehicle. And that's what we're seeing with a lot of the vehicles now that are being produced by all the automakers. 

Well, that's really, really wonderful. OK, I want to talk safety. But also to the audience, put your questions in the Q&A function. I'm going to get to your audience questions in just a moment here. Let's talk about safety for a minute and let's look into the future. A lot of great safety features that have come online in the last 10 to 15 years. What's next for vehicle safety? So Drew, I'm going to go to you first and then to David. What is next and what are you most excited about? 

It's a really good question. I think I'm most maybe excited about and nervous about autonomous vehicles. I think a lot of the safety features that we're seeing come out are really the precursors to that. And we know that the manufacturers continue to drive toward vehicles that they can drive themselves. And to be able to do that, they have to stop themselves. They have to be able to speed up and slow down on highway so the auto keeping cruise control, the lane keeping technology that can actually change lanes and pass slower vehicles, these types of things are a direct result of the research into autonomous vehicles. 

So I wish I had a crystal ball to be able to predict which new technology is going to make its way into consumer vehicles next. I'm not sure, but clearly there's a big effort to make the sensors that are necessary for autonomous vehicles, the LiDAR systems, much smaller and much less expensive. My new phone has a LiDAR system on it. So clearly there's some potential to make it a lot smaller and a lot cheaper. I'm really curious to see how that technology makes its way into automobiles next and then what the manufacturer is actually going to do with those technologies. 

Thank you. David, what are your thoughts? 

So I think the thing that we get concerned about now is a lot of this technology that Drew's talking about is we're trying to figure out a lot of the research that we're conducting now is how is the driver going to engage with a lot of this technology? And is it going to really enhance safety in the way that we've seen with some of the early systems and what Drew showed you in his slides? These systems are working. We're seeing safety benefits. 

But as we move forward with some of these systems, as they get maybe a little more complex, or they allow the driver to disengage from the driving tasks at times, are we going to see some safety disbenefits that we need to be worried about? And I think that's one of the real unknown questions that we're going to continue to research and evaluate and try to see. 

The thing I get the most excited about right now is what we call vehicle [INAUDIBLE]. And what I mean by that is we're seeing more and more of these safety features and safety systems show up [INAUDIBLE]. They're becoming more standard equipment rather than being high end options that you can only get on luxury brands or on very expensive trim levels. And I think that's really, really important to make sure that we can provide safety for anybody that wants to purchase a vehicle. 

I think that's a really critically important kind of platform for your organization to say that these should not be based on wealth or what you can afford. They should be for everyone and all. David, I have a couple of questions coming in from the audience. And this is really interesting. I'm sure there's many parents listening to us right now. So a couple of questions. Any specific models out there you want to recommend for teen drivers, new drivers, anything specific? 

Yeah, so one of the things that we've been doing for a few years now is putting out our best used vehicle for teens list. And so you can go to our website at iihs.org and you get that list of vehicles for teens. But I will tell you it's not just for teens. It's a good list of vehicles. If you're looking for a family car or looking for a personal car for you, it's a good starting list of vehicles if you're looking for a used vehicle. And now we also did a list of new vehicles as well. So we have a new vehicle list and a used vehicle list. 

And one of the things that we did this past year is we combined our safety ratings with Consumer Reports performance and reliability ratings. And we put those things together. And so it's a combined list that takes all those factors into account. And so it really is a good starting point for someone shopping for a new or used vehicle. 

Actually, we just got a question on that from Vijay Dixit. Vijay is a friend of the family. We collaborated with him to tell the story of his daughter who was killed in a distracted driving accident and crash. And so Vijay wants to know how are your ratings different than Consumer Reports? And I think you may have just answered that. Consumer Reports is more about the reliability of the actual vehicle versus the safety. Is that correct? Is that its distinction? 

Yeah, so we are strictly looking at safety. And it's and it's what I went through with the top safety pick criteria. So we're looking at collision avoidance, [INAUDIBLE] how well they protect the occupant in a crash, how good the headlights are, all of those features. And then Consumer Reports is looking at how the vehicle performs and then how reliable is it. And of course, if you're looking for a vehicle for a team, the last thing you want is an unreliable vehicle. And so that's why we thought it was really important for organizations to work together to try and come up with this comprehensive list that took all of those factors into account. 

OK, thank you for that. This one comes to us from Phoenix Insurance Group, James Venezia. Does IIHS make recommendations for an approved new driver safety technologies for general use? 

[INAUDIBLE] recommendation. So one of the things that we do as part of our research is we will sometimes come out with some guidance. We're not a regulatory body. Sometimes though we get in the role of being pseudo regulator if the government is not moving fast enough on a particular topic or issue. Through our education program and testing program, we end up influencing the auto industry in that way. We do occasionally put out guidance or recommendations related to certain aspects of safety features. 

So I'll give you an example of one that we released this past year was thinking about level two systems. Now, these are systems where you can control both the throttle and braking of the vehicle at the same time you can control the lane keeping and steering of the vehicle. And so there are more and more systems like this now coming online. One of our concerns about that system, this is the one where you become disengaged from the driving task for short periods of time. And [INAUDIBLE] how do you bring the driver or keep the driver in the driving loop? And so that's really important. 

So we put out guidance to say you needed a series of escalated warnings that start with a visual warning, move to an audible warning, then combine that with a tactile warning of some sort, and then gets to the point of escalating all the way to where it just stops the vehicle and you can't drive it any longer. [INAUDIBLE] the recommendations that we can come out with periodically about how we think the industry should move in terms of developing these systems. 

I guess I would just add to that one point that I forgot to make when I was talking through the proliferation of the advanced safety features is one thing that I think that IIHS in particular has helped with is just looking back at the Volvo and Subaru examples that David went through, the Volvo system is called City Safety and the Subaru system is called Eyesight. And a consumer hears these trademarked names and has no idea how to think about comparing those systems. But thanks to the rating system that IIHS has developed, I think a consumer and insurance carrier too can get a better idea of what can I expect from these systems. Is it really a low speed system or is it a high speed system? So I think that IIHS influence in this space can lead to a little bit more standardization across the manufacturers and a little bit better understanding for consumers too of what they're considering in a vehicle when they're buying one. 

Great. Thank you, Drew. Next question coming to us from Steve Pearson, a friend out in San Francisco with ISU Insurance. And this is a question I also was confused about too when I was at the center. So it's very difficult for you all to determine how some of these new touch screens work and whether the touch screen itself is distracting. So Steve's question is more complex driver interfaces create distractions in and of themselves? 

So before we go over three buttons on our radio and we push the third button in or preset, we it's that third and we can feel that third button. We wouldn't have to take our eyes off the road. Now we might have to go down on a touch screen and it might be in a submenu somewhere to change a fan speed or something. So how does IIHS address kind of these more complex features of the menus? 

It's a great question, and I don't think we know all the answers yet. And we certainly have research studies, and I know we're working with other organizations that are doing research in this area as well. But we've done some preliminary studies showing that very fact that if you can do something with one command, one simple command versus having to go through those two or three or four menus to do the same thing, if it's making a phone call, how much more complex it is, how much more divided attention you need, you're taking away attention from driving tasks and you're putting it on this other task. And so that sort of divided attention becomes a real problem. 

And so I think this is one of those things where our research and the research of others that are working in this area do help inform the design of these systems moving forward. And so what you hope for, and it's a little early because these systems haven't been out that long in some cases. And so what you hope for is that the automakers will take note of the complexities that are being found in the research and modifying the systems accordingly. 

OK. Thank you for that. A couple of questions on children. And you mentioned in terms of putting children in the back seat versus the front seat. So question coming in from--I'm sorry, I want to read your name here. So coming in from Jonathan Koch Is the back seat still the safest place for kids under 14? So we know the rear facing car seats obviously always in the back. But what about kids that are 10, 11, 12 years of age? Do we still have them in the back or they should be in the front now? It sounds like that's more safe in the front.

Yeah, it's a great question. And we've gotten this question ever since that study came out as to what does it mean in terms of especially those kids that are in the age range that you just described. And I think it's one of those things where I would certainly still probably want to put the child in the back seat. However, I don't think you're putting them at any kind of extreme risk by putting them in the front seat. I think right now it's one of those things where it's really up to the individual and how comfortable they are with where their child wants to be. 

We think this is going to be something that gets resolved pretty quickly. The technologies in the belts when I was talking about pretensioners and load limiters, these can easily be put in the rear seat of the vehicle. Some of the automakers already have them in the rear seat. And I think we're going to see this become the solution to this problem that we're talking about. And I think it's going to happen quickly. And if it does, then it will definitely be the case that the rear seat will still be the safest place for children and for the elderly. 

OK. Couple of quick questions. Drew, back to you. A lot of questions around why pedestrian deaths are up in the past couple of years. We know that miles driven were down about 14% last year because of the pandemic, but fatalities are up. What's going on, Drew? 

I don't have an answer to that one for you, Joan. I don't know, David, based on your analysis if you have insight there. 

So some of the early stuff that's been done by NHTSA and has been released and other organizations are looking at this as well. Speed has certainly been a big factor that we've seen. And there was anecdotal evidence early on of the roads being empty, people traveling at high speeds, law enforcement issuing lots of tickets for high speed driving. Speed certainly played a role and continues to play a role in terms of those fatality numbers being up and the fatality rates being up. And so I think that's, at least so far from the early analysis of the data, that's probably the primary factor. 

And we also know for sure that distracted driving is a contributing factor to the pedestrian, the bicycle deaths over the last three or four years. And speed, as you point out. So last question. LED lights, headlights. You talked a lot about those. There are different headlights in Europe out there and some people are claiming, at least the audience here is saying they're very blinding coming towards them. Have you done analysis on LED versus more classic headlights? 

So one of the things that's really important to understand about our headlight testing is we are a technology agnostic. Whether it is HID, the old halogen, which is really poor for the most part, LED, or if you could have what's in Europe, and we've tested a couple of these facilities [INAUDIBLE] active matrix beam systems, any of those lights can blind the oncoming driver. Aim is so, so, so important when you're looking at these systems. 

And so it's not so much the technology like LED. It's more that that vehicle is aimed in the correct direction. And that's what we see in our test is--and that's the reason we give demerit points if there's too much glare. So try to get as much light downstream, but do not create that glare for the oncoming driver. And I suspect, and I'm like everybody else, you've been on the road, you get blinded at night by an oncoming vehicle's headlights, and I will guarantee you it's the aim of that light more than it is the specific technology of that light. 

OK, terrific. We are out of time, but I want to talk about a couple of upcoming programs at the Institute. But first, David and Drew, thank you so very much for your thoughts. We'll definitely have you back on our webinar series again to talk about the next round of safety. So thrilled that we have Drew Woods on our team and on your board to bring all this incredible research back into Travelers. So thank you both. 

(DESCRIPTION) 
Slide, a bullet point list. Text, Travelers institute dot org 

(SPEECH) 
And with that, I want to talk about our upcoming webinar so everyone has a chance to see where we're headed. With you on March 17th, are you recruiting military spouses yet? And this is going to be an amazing webinar with lots of resources to get military spouses into your organizations. March 31st, the art and science of behavioral change around distracted driving to kick off Distracted Driving Awareness Month. And then on April 14th, a really special program. I'm going to be interviewing Dr. Ashish Jha on April 14th, he is the Dean of Brown Medicine, talking about the vaccine successes and outlook for us. And this is all about the FDA approval process and getting shots into arms. Join us for Ashish Jha on April 14th. 

And then on April 28th for the personal line agents out there, future ready, trends and personal insurance distribution. Laurie Tiedemann, who runs that for us, will join us on April 28th. May 5th a special, special webinar. Behind the scenes at the Travelers Championship golf event, the PGA event that we host every year in June. We're going to talk to the tournament director, Nathan Grube, as well as Andy Bessette on the Travelers team. That will be a really interesting look at behind the scenes at that golf event. May 12th is small business, big opportunity. 

So please join us for these programs and invite you to connect with me on LinkedIn. Send us an email, let us know what you think. Institut@travelers.org. And we will see you in a few weeks, folks. Please wear your mask. Get your shots if you can. And thank you again to our terrific speakers today for crash and learn. Take care.