Honda Motor Co. has topped the insurance industry’s annual list of the safest new
vehicles.TheInsurance Institute for Highway Safety on Thursday gave 39 vehicles topsafety ratings for
2014. That is dramatically fewer than the 130 on thelist last year because vehicles now must meet
tougher standards.Forthe first time, the vehicles need top crash test scores and a goodfront crash
prevention system — such as warning systems or automaticbraking — to get its highest designation.
Vehicles are now ranked aseither a "Top Safety Pick" or "Top Safety Pick +" if they
meet the frontcrash protection criteria as well.Honda, which also owns theAcura brand, had the most
winners of any automaker with eight of itsvehicles making the list. The Honda Civic hybrid, Honda
Accord, AcuraRLX and Acura MDX all got the highest ranking. Its Honda Civic two-doorand Acura TL were
also ranked as top safety picks.The list is often used by safety-minded car shoppers and by automakers
in advertising.Thereare eight newcomers to the list, including Infinity’s Q50, the Mazda 3,Toyota
Highlander and the Chevrolet Spark mini-car. The Honda CivicHybrid and several Volvo models won the top
designation on the basis ofstandard equipment in their vehicles.The IIHS’s rankings havebeen a catalyst
in recent years for automakers to make their cars safer.Automakers are scrambling to bolster the
front-end protection of theircars and trucks to meet the institute’s offset test, which measures howwell
a car protects people in a crash covering only part of the frontend.For example, Toyota redesigned the
midsize Camry sedan,America’s top-selling car, so it could pass the test, the instituteannounced
Thursday. The changes helped the Camry’s crash-test ratingmove from "poor" to
"acceptable," for all models built after Nov. 1, theinstitute said.Copyright 2013 The
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