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Saab 9-5, 9-3 Hatchback Rated as "Safest Cars" in Swedish Road Accident Study


May 2005
 Filed under: SAAB Car News | SAAB Headlines
Detroit, MI – The Saab 9-5 and Saab 9-3 hatchback are rated as the safest cars in Sweden following the latest road accident study conducted by Folksam, the country's leading insurance company.
The Folksam report, “How Safe is Your Car?”, updated every two years, features findings based on an assessment of personal injuries suffered in real-life accidents on Swedish roads. In winning Folksam's safest car award, the Saab 9-5 and 9-3 hatchback were honored for scoring the lowest injury risk rating of 138 different car models in the study.

The findings are based on an analysis of 94,100 car-to-car road accidents in Sweden since 1994 involving injuries to 35,400 occupants. An injury risk measurement is produced for each car model on which there is sufficient data available, including a wide variety of German, Japanese and other Swedish car brands.

Apart from winning Folksam's overall award, the 1998-2005 Saab 9-5 and 1998-2003 Saab 9-3 hatchback each topped their own respective categories, for large and medium -sized cars. The Saab 9-5 also won Folksam’s safest car award two years ago.

Both models have been developed according to Saab's “Real-Life Safety” philosophy, which involves computer simulations and crash testing designed to replicate what happens in real collisions on real roads. These are derived from detailed analysis of actual accidents involving Saab cars on Swedish roads. The Saab database now covers more than 6,100 real-world collisions.

"This latest Folksam report is further independent confirmation of the effectiveness of our long-term work with car safety," emphasized Per Lenhoff, manager of Crash Safety Development at Saab Automobile.

Saab cars are also highly rated in studies and tests carried out in the United States by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) and the Highway Loss Data Institute (HLDI). Based on top results in separate frontal and side impact crash tests, the 2004 Saab 9‑3 Sport Sedan earned a “Double Best Pick” designation from IIHS, the first passenger car to achieve this distinction. In a 2004 HLDI study covering model years 2001-2003 , the Saab 9-5 sedan topped the luxury midsize category for relative frequency of injury insurance claims .

As a further affirmation of Saab’s safety achievements, the 2003 Saab 9-3 Sport Sedan, 2004 9-3 Convertible and 2003 Saab 9-5 have each earned five stars, the highest rating possible, in the European New Car Assessment Program’s (EuroNCAP) frontal and side-impact crash tests. EuroNCAP, Europe’s leading crash-test agency, conducts tests on European model variants using three types of collisions: a frontal offset barrier impact and two different kinds of side impacts. The test results are then evaluated according to a large number of parameters relating to driver and passenger safety.

Lenhoff notes that a vehicle's safety performance is the product of many factors, including driver and occupant behavior, personal judgment and other variables. The design of the car also influences its real-life safety integrity. “Real-Life Safety” means that Saab’s goal is to develop cars that provide safety in real-world crashes

Saab is a division of General Motors Corp. Saab Cars USA is the distributor of Saab 9-2X, 9-3 and 9-5 vehicles for Saab Automobile AB, Sweden . For more information, please visit www.saabusa.com.

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