We Experience 40 Years of GM Safety Advancements Through the Lens of a 1990 Chevy Suburban

• What's new: General Motors is highlighting its latest safety tech.
• Why it matters: Automatic braking and crash avoidance systems can save lives during the peak summer driving season.
• Edmunds says: Using a 1990 Chevy Suburban as a starting point, GM effectively showcases its advances in safety over the last four decades. Nostalgia is a nice hook.

On a windswept morning some 36 years after it was new, a two-tone black-and-red 1990 Suburban sits on the edge of a testing tarmac in Milford, Michigan, at the General Motors Proving Grounds, where GM has gathered journalists to show off some of its latest safety technology. The '90s are back in vogue and they don't seem that long ago to many of us, but this Suburban is a vintage museum piece closer to the Eisenhower administration than the present day. 

Automotive safety has galloped forward in the years since, and GM's least expensive crossover, the Trax, has standard safety features like automatic emergency braking, front pedestrian braking, lane keeping assistance with departure warnings, and forward collision alert that would have been the stuff of science fiction in 1990. 

More safety for dangerous roads

The stark contrast illustrates the broader industry shift, democratizing safety as federal rules and consumer expectations have increased. Cars are safer than ever and the U.S. traffic fatality rate has dropped by 43% since 1990, according to federal data. Still, more than 39,000 people died on U.S. roads in 2024, the most recent figures available. Distracted driving is arguably worse than ever, and today's large vehicles with elevated driving positions make it hard to spot pedestrians. Our visit to Milford came a couple weeks before the Fourth of July, a peak driving holiday and near the middle of the 100-day period between Memorial Day and Labor Day, when teen driving and alcohol-related crashes increase. 

GM argues all of these challenges highlight the need for standard safety features in lower-cost vehicles like the Trax, as well as electric vehicles like the Chevy Blazer EV and family-hauling Traverse.

"Not only are we making the technology accessible across our portfolio, we're making it more affordable," said Regina Carto, GM's vice president of global product safety, systems and certification. 

Braking fast, braking well

While the '90 Suburban didn’t move during our visit to the Proving Grounds, we sampled emergency braking in the Blazer EV, as a GM test driver launched us across a handling pad toward another "car," which was really a moving balloon on wheels crossing into our path. Without engagement from the driver, the Blazer braked itself to a stop in front of the balloon-mobile, preventing what would have been a T-bone collision. GM calls this intersection automatic emergency braking, and in a similar real-life incident, it would prevent airbags from firing, glass from shattering and a visit to the emergency room.

We tested front pedestrian braking in a 2027 Chevy Bolt, which worked similarly well. As the Bolt came alongside a strategically placed GM BrightDrop truck, a drone mimicking a skateboarder rolled in front, causing the Bolt to quickly skid to a halt. We also rode shotgun in a Chevy Traverse, which stopped in its tracks during a simulated near-bicycle crash.

The Bolt starts at $28,995, the Traverse starts at $42,795, and the Blazer EV starts at $45,495. None are close to the elevated spot the Suburban held in Chevy's lineup in 1990, when it cost $17,405 new. Adjusted for inflation, that's $45,783 in today's money, though a similar four-wheel-drive Suburban now starts at $69,495.

"Now it's at the point where they expect it [advanced safety] to be in vehicles," said Mike Carpenter, one of GM's vehicle safety engineers.

For years, companies like Volvo and Subaru made safety features their calling cards, while other automakers were content to make them safety package add-ons or lump key features in with tech packages.

"They [customers] don't want to make a choice on safety," said Pam Walz, senior marketing manager for Chevrolet SUVs. "They want them to be standard."

Testing safety at the proving grounds

With that in mind, GM set out to enhance its Milford Proving Grounds with an eye toward safety testing, spending $14 million in a hub with six test areas set over 52 acres. Called the Active Safety Test Area, this section of the proving grounds has a dynamic pad, highway simulation, and parking and pedestrian testing.

Set in a leafy suburb more than 40 miles from Detroit, the Milford site is perhaps best known as a test bed for future products. Mythicized in spy shots of camouflaged Corvettes and Cadillacs barreling down test tracks captured by photographers with long lenses, GM has tested cars there for more than a century. While former vice chairman and product chief Bob Lutz made it seem like a glamorous racetrack, it's been a key safety hub for decades, with landmarks like the first rollover test in 1934, a self-driving Chevy test in the 1950s and the development of GM's latest driver assistance tech, Super Cruise in 2016.

Carpenter, who helped plan the 2015 improvements, points to that decade as a launching point for the safety systems that are more common in vehicles today.

"The level of technology from 2010 to now has been amazing," he said.

Not all that long before that, a hulking 1990 Suburban would have been spoken of in the same manner. While this well-preserved example with four-wheel drive, a 350 V8 and velour interior will head back to the GM Heritage Center, it's a mile marker in safety advancements. In the '90s, you might not have even bothered with a seat belt in your Suburban. In 2026, your electric car can stop itself.