Posted 10 January 2012 - 08:16 PM
There is no "safest" car. Different cars are safer depending on what kind of accident. A pick-up will fare far better getting rear ended than most others due to weight and crush zone. I know a guy that had a full size sedan run into him at 50 mph just 2 weeks ago (he was stopped for traffic, the other guy never hit the brakes). Substantial damage to the bed, but still drivable, and more importantly, no injuries.
The old mantra that SUVs are most deadly is not as true due to electronic stability control. I would also contend that the low death rate for mini-vans is in no small part due to the type of driver that buys a minivan, not some inherent safety design.
The ratings below only refer to deaths, so "safest" might not be the right term as I couldn't find data for injuries by vehicle type.
linkWhen driver death rates are looked at by vehicle style, minivans have the best record with a death rate of 25 driver deaths per million registered vehicles, the insurance industry-funded safety group found. SUVs aren’t far behind at 28, and pickup trucks average 52 driver deaths. Cars have a death rate of 56, but smaller cars fare worse than bigger ones, with four-door minicars showing a death rate of 82, compared with 46 for very large 4-door cars.
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