Volvo Car Canada survey finds lagging confidence in vehicle safety

Eighty-one percent of Canadians who responded to a recent survey fielded by Volvo Car Canada said vehicle safety ratings influence their purchasing decisions; however, that doesn’t always translate into confidence or action behind the wheel.

Forty percent said they’re “completely confident” that their current vehicle would protect them in a crash, and among younger drivers, that number drops further. Confidence is lowest among Gen Z (32%) and highest among Boomers (48%).

“The findings reveal a critical gap between what drivers say they value and how they actually feel on the road,” Volvo Car Canada said in a press release. “At Volvo, safety has always been more than just a feature; it’s a founding principle. From pioneering the three-point safety belt in 1959 to introducing Safe Space Technology in today’s vehicles, Volvo’s mission remains clear: to close the gap between expectation and experience through innovation based on real-world research… Thanks to over five decades of safety research collected from real-life accidents, Volvo Cars has built unique safety knowledge, capturing the complexity of the real world.”

Safe Space Technology is made up of advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) designed to protect those in and around the car and to prevent accidents, according to Volvo.

While 61% of respondents said they trust features like blind spot monitoring and lane-keeping assist, 59% — especially younger drivers — said they find modern safety technology distracting or confusing.

Despite ranking safety as important, only 9% listed it as their top factor when buying a car, well behind price (34%) and fuel efficiency (15%), according to the survey results.

Canadians said they consider backup cameras (40%) and blind spot detection (26%) essential, with 51% willing to pay more for advanced safety features.

Volvo’s latest safety innovation is the world’s first multi-adaptive safety belt, which will debut in the fully electric Volvo EX60 next year.

It’s designed for greater protection in real-world traffic scenarios by using data input from interior and exterior sensors to customize protection, adapting the setting based on the situation and individual’s profiles, such as height, weight, body shape, and seating position.

The company is also leveraging data to improve safety, now with AI and machine learning, to analyze billions of real-time data points, accelerating the company toward its goal of zero collisions and pushing safety innovations to new heights, according to the release.

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Featured image credit: shaunl/iStock

Graphs provided by Volvo Car Canada 

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