Ask anyone buying a car how valuable safety is to them and they’ll say it’s very important, maybe even crucial. Ask them to prioritise safety above things that have a more direct impact on their everyday enjoyment of a car or their bank balance, and it is a different story.
We asked more than 400 people to pick their top three priorities when choosing a new car from 10 key buying criteria. Reliability overwhelmingly came top, chosen by 54 per cent of those polled, yet safety was second from last at 20 per cent.
This deprioritisation of safety in the minds of car buyers might be surprising if you consider the implications of driving an unsafe vehicle, but it’s nothing new for the automotive industry. Safety has long been a tough sell, compared with a car’s more practical or emotionally involving facets. Volvo, you could argue, is the exception to the rule, having built a large part of its brand on foundations of safety innovation.
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