For cautious types, the Toyota Corolla is a safe bet.  It has all the features one could wish for: dual airbags, ABS and a GOA-standard body construction.  In fact, the only thing lacking here is disc brakes all around (a problem solved by the all-new 2001 Toyota Corolla—already out in the Japan and some parts of Asia). With the new Corolla still in limbo when it comes to its Philippine launch, Toyota Philippines have also added rear-parking sensors and extended bumpers as standard on Altis models, which makes a safe car even safer. 

At this point, it is curious to note that when it comes to passive safety devices, the Corolla is up there with the likes of the much-bigger 2.0-liter and above class, but could we say the same thing about active safety?  What is meant by active safety is the ability of the car to avoid accidents even before it happens, thus things like panic braking, handling and control are put into question.  Unfortunately, the Corolla fails miserable in this category.

Although the car is chuckable in to corners, it does so with a degree of hesitation and huge amounts of body roll.  What’s more the steering wheel doesn’t communicate anything to the driver, which means that the car might have already met its limit and the driver doesn’t even know this.  

Putting the Corolla in a skid-pad type test revealed that although the car showed great agility, the car’s tires were already screeching—and indication that traction was already being lost.  The problem is the steering still felt dead and without the tire lock-up sounds, we wouldn’t have known that this was the limit of the car.