From the LA Times:

Honda Safety Initiative at the Finish Line

The company's program culminates in a package of protection systems as standard equipment on 99% of its passenger vehicles sold in the U.S.
By John O'Dell, Times Staff Writer
August 28, 2006

John Mendel was chief operating officer at Mazda North America three years ago when he heard that American Honda was promising an industry-leading package of safety equipment on its mainstream models by 2006.

Mendel vividly recalls going to his boss at the time and saying, "The oven just got hotter."


Now it is Mendel stoking the safety fires as senior vice president of Honda Motor Co.'s Torrance-based U.S. automotive operations.

With the introduction this month of the 2007 Honda Element, the Japanese automaker has kept its 2003 promise.

But more than that, the No. 2 foreign brand in the U.S. wants to surpass leaders Volvo and Mercedes-Benz in the automotive safety field and keep finding ways to distinguish itself from larger rival Toyota Motor Corp.

Mendel, who joined Honda in November 2004, said the company intended to continue adding increasingly sophisticated safety systems to its vehicles — making them standard when economically feasible — as technology developments permit.

Although Honda's advances are notable in and of themselves, safety specialists laud the automaker for compelling rivals to expand their offerings to remain competitive.

"This pulls the whole industry ahead," said Adrian Lund, president of the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety.

"If you are a competitor selling a Camry and Honda makes side-curtain air bags with head protection standard on its Accord, then you've got to follow to stay competitive," he said, referring to Toyota and its top-selling sedan.

By completing its so-called Safety for Everyone initiative, Honda provides anti-lock braking systems and dual front air bags and side-curtain air bags as standard equipment on almost all the cars and trucks it sells in the United States.

To that basic package, Honda's sport utility vehicles and its Ridgeline pickup add vehicle stability — or anti-skid — systems and rollover sensors. The sensors measure tilt and deploy the side-curtain air bags when a rollover is imminent.

Honda also will provide a vehicle stability system as a standard feature on its V-6 Accord models for the 2007 model year.

Six of Honda's 14 models include its collision compatibility body system, and the company intends to have all its vehicles using it within five years, Mendel said.

The system, called ACE, for advanced compatibility engineering body structure, employs high-strength metals, crumple zones and specially engineered metal body pieces to enable a small vehicle to better absorb impact and protect occupants in a collision with a larger vehicle.

"Honda and Volkswagen are probably the industry leaders in terms of both safety features and performance in independent crash tests" such as those done by the insurance institute and the federal National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, said Gabriel Shenhar, senior automotive test engineer for Consumer Reports magazine.

Honda, though, is the only mainstream automaker with such a broad array of standard safety equipment; VW has a more limited lineup of vehicles.

With only its low-volume S2000 roadster and two-seat Insight gasoline-electric hybrid omitted from the Safety for Everyone program, Honda offers its package as standard equipment on 99% of the 1.5 million passenger vehicles it sells each year in the U.S. across its Honda and Acura brands, Mendel said.

Lund, whose Virginia-based institute is considered a leader in the development of automotive crash testing, said Honda vehicles not only come with an impressive array of standard safety systems but also test well.

"They have a number of vehicles that get our 'good' rating in side-impact crashes, and there aren't many that do," he said, referring to automakers in general.

"Good" is the institute's top rating

__________________
1998 Honda Prelude type sh.

"Just a small town girl, living a lonely world. She took the midnight train going anywhere. Just a small town boy, born and raised in south detroit, he took the midnight train going anywhere."

Honda does it again. good find. They are gonna force everybody to get their shit together one way or another.

__________________

Nice. Very Nice.

__________________