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Each year, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) buys approximately 100 new cars and trucks, then crashes them head-on into a wall or bashes them broadside to see how well they're likely to protect occupants in real-world collisions. The $4 million taxpayers spend on this annual wrecking spree is only a fraction of the hundreds of millions carmakers spend to design one vehicle. But because NHTSA's results are made public, they've become a strong incentive for automakers to improve their safety scores.
And improve they have: Just 30 percent of the 94 new vehicles rated in 1985, when NHTSA's crash program was well under way, received high ...