NATION Automakers find that safety sells

Car buyers are increasingly more interested in safety features.
DAYTON (AP) -- When Aimee Cunningham bought a Ford Expedition, the sport-utility behemoth that dwarfs most other passenger vehicles on the highway, she was thinking about her baby girl.
"I could have cared less about safety until I had my daughter," said Cunningham, 29, of Springfield. "I want to make sure she's safe. If somebody hit us, it wouldn't be as much of an impact."
Experts say safety has become a growing concern and selling point for many car buyers in recent years, in part due to the perception that the world can be a dangerous place. Consumers cite past highway experiences and changes in lifestyles as reasons.
"It used to be: 'Give me the leather seats, give me the six-CD changer, give me the power sunroof,'" said Eron Shosteck, spokesman for the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers. The trade group represents 10 automakers that account for 90 percent of U.S. vehicle sales.
Now, he said, consumers seem more interested in anti-lock brakes, side-deployed air bags and stability-control technology.
"We're at the point where consumers want to pay for safety technology in a way they didn't before," Shosteck said.
Rollovers
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration recently announced it would begin supplementing a mathematical formula with road tests to better judge the risk of a vehicle's rollover and get that information to car buyers.
In 2002, 10,666 people were killed in rollover crashes, up 5 percent from the previous year.
"Consumers need to consider rollover risk when they shop for a new vehicle," said NHTSA Administrator Jeffrey Runge.
Automakers have tried safety before as a marketing draw but with little luck, Shosteck said.
In the mid-1950s the Ford Motor Co. started an ad campaign called "You'll Go Safer in a 1956 Ford" that offered a range of optional safety technologies.
In 1972, General Motors Corp. hoped to sell 100,000 Impalas equipped with new safety technology, but could sell only 1,000, he said.
Last year, J.D. Power and Associates asked 20,000 car buyers how interested they would be in 25 different features that are, or soon could be, in new cars.
Only about half of the 25 features were safety-related, but the top seven as ranked by the buyers had to do with safety, said J.D. Power research manager Mike Marshal. They included such things as monitors to detect low tire pressure, anti-whiplash seats and night vision systems.
Why the increased interest?
Shosteck said there are several reasons for the increased interest in safety. He said many of the newer technologies are safety-related, so that the newest features on cars have to do with safety.
But he also said today's uncertain world -- created in part by the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington -- has people looking for ways to protect themselves.
"Since September 11, there's been a greater emphasis on personal security, and that includes your personal motor vehicle," he said.
David Champion, director of Consumer Reports magazine's auto-test facility, said Americans seem more fearful today of such things as having their children kidnapped. That affects buying patterns.
"Safety across the board has become more important in everyday life, maybe because the news is so grim much of the time," Champion said. "Safety sells."
Safety became very important to Bari Saul when her van rolled three times and landed on its top, throwing two of her children from the vehicle. The family walked away with cuts, scrapes and sprains, but the memory remains fresh.
Saul, 42, of Loveland, Ohio, is buying a used car and insists that it have airbags.
"You want the most safety features," she said.
However, Tammy Valentine, 34, of suburban Riverside, Ohio, feels the added safety features can be too expensive.
"I don't even think about it when I'm buying a car, I guess because of the money issue," she said.