About IIHS

The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) is a nonprofit research and communications organization funded by auto insurers. For over 30 years the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety has been a leader in finding out what works and doesn't work to prevent motor vehicle crashes in the first place and reduce injuries in the crashes that still occur. The Institute's research focuses on countermeasures aimed at all three factors in motor vehicle crashes (human, vehicular, and environmental) and on interventions that can occur before, during, and after crashes to reduce losses. In 1992 the Vehicle Research Center (VRC) was opened. This center, which includes a state-of-the-art crash test facility, is the focus of most of the Institute's vehicle-related research. The Institute's affiliate organization, the Highway Loss Data Institute (HLDI), gathers, processes, and publishes data on the ways in which insurance losses vary among different kinds of vehicles.

A brief look at the field of highway safety

Before the 1960s, highway safety advocates focused nearly all their efforts on preventing crashes, primarily by trying to change driver behavior. Engineering attracted some attention, but it was engineering to prevent crashes. Reducing the consequences of crashes didn't get much notice.

Because of the focus on crash prevention, many lifesaving vehicle designs were overlooked. For example, a few physicians advocated safety belts in the 1930s, but US automakers didn't begin installing lap belts as standard equipment until the 1960s — and then in response to state mandates. Shoulder belts didn't become standard until the 1968 model year when they were mandated by federal law.

Why did the safety belt, which today is universally recognized as a lifesaving device, take so long to be adopted? In large part because of the nonscientific approach to highway safety that prevailed until the 1960s — an approach that focused on accident prevention. The modern scientific approach really began with William Haddon, Jr., M.D., who developed the first systematic methods of identifying a complete range of options for reducing crash losses.

Through the mid-1960s, many advocates continued to emphasize accident prevention. Automakers, for example, said vehicle characteristics were irrelevant because people caused crashes, so people, not vehicles, needed to change. Since the late 1960s, however, the scientific approach has dominated, in part because of two 1966 laws that authorized the federal government to set vehicle safety standards and provide for a national highway safety program. Dr. Haddon was appointed the first federal highway safety chief and based the program on the scientific approach.

Soon after, US auto insurers began joining the effort to transform the highway safety field into one based on science. In 1969, Dr. Haddon became president of the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety with a mandate to convert it into a research-oriented organization. Supported by auto insurers, the Institute is uniquely positioned to influence highway safety issues because the interest of insurers in reducing highway losses coincides with the public interest. Current Institute president Adrian Lund carries on the tradition of science-based research to reduce deaths, injuries, and property damage on the nation's highways.

Institute research covers three distinct areas:

• Human factors research addresses problems associated with teenage drivers, alcohol-impaired driving, truck driver fatigue, and safety belt use, to name a few.
• Vehicle factors research focuses on both crash avoidance and crashworthiness. Crash tests are central to crashworthiness research, and the Institute has been conducting such tests for decades to illustrate, for example, the importance of safety belts and airbags. This work expanded with the opening of the Institute's Vehicle Research Center and an ongoing program of frontal offset crash tests.
• Research aimed at the physical environment includes, for example, assessment of roadway designs to reduce run-off-the-road crashes and eliminate roadside hazards.

These and other programs help reduce deaths, injuries, and property damage from motor vehicle crashes. Reducing such losses is why the Institute exists.

Read more about the founding of the Institutes in Origins and purposes of the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety.

Aerial view of the IIHS crash test facility in Ruckersville, Virginia

Adrian Lund (left) is president of the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety and the affiliated Highway Loss Data Institute. He joined the Institute in 1981 as a behavioral scientist.

Brian O’Neill (center) served as president of IIHS and HLDI from 1985 until January 2006. He joined the Institute in 1969.

William Haddon Jr., M.D. (right) became Institute president in1969 and served until his death in 1985. He was the first federal highway safety chief.