While options, good looks and the right price are all very important factors in choosing a new car, safety is paramount for many buyers.

Turn on the TV, pick up a newspaper, or check the banner ads on your favorite website and you’ll see auto company after auto company boasting of its new vehicle’s “five-star crash test rating.”

It was a horrific story that thankfully ended well. It reaches back to 1995 when Janette Fannell, her husband and infant son, returning home on an October night, were kidnapped, the parents forced at gunpoint into the trunk of their car and the child abandoned in his car seat. Taken to a remote area, they were robbed and then locked in the trunk, left to die.