The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS)

The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) is an independent, nonprofit scientific and educational organization dedicated to reducing the losses — deaths, injuries and property damage — from crashes on the nation’s roads.

IIHS was founded in 1959 by three major insurance associations representing 80 percent of the U.S. auto insurance market. At first, the Institute’s purpose was to support highway safety efforts by others. A decade later, IIHS was reinvented as an independent research organization. William Haddon Jr., M.D., who served as the nation’s first federal highway safety chief, oversaw this transition after becoming president of IIHS in 1969. By then, he already was leading the transformation of the highway safety field from one focused solely on crash prevention to one using a modern, scientific approach to identify a full range of options for reducing crash losses. In particular:

Human factors research addresses problems associated with teenage drivers, alcohol-impaired driving, truck driver fatigue and safety belt use, to name a few.

Vehicle research focuses on both crash avoidance and crashworthiness. Crash tests are central to crashworthiness research, and IIHS testing expanded with the opening of the Vehicle Research Center (VRC).

Check out the website: http://www.iihs.org/