The automobile insurance coverage trade’s premier security company has launched a treasure trove of information about automobile crashes. However recognizing traits within the knowledge isn’t straightforward.
Roughly talking, it confirms some widespread sense. Small vehicles, with their mild weights, don’t fare nicely in accidents. Muscle vehicles give some drivers extra energy than they will deal with. And luxurious autos, with their high-tech security options, have a tendency to guard their drivers higher than inexpensive vehicles.
However even these traits aren’t 100% dependable.
Crash checks are imperfect
Automotive security is rather more advanced than it appears. Security companies do their finest to simplify it with awards and star scores. However, as a lot as we’d like to checklist the most secure vehicles, all out there knowledge has flaws.
Crash checks, as an example, don’t resemble real-world crashes. A frontal crash take a look at – when a security lab slams a automobile right into a barrier — simulates a automobile crashing right into a automobile of comparable measurement and weight. They don’t inform us how a subcompact SUV fares when a full-size truck slams into it.
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Facet crash checks do inform us what occurs when a truck slams right into a automobile’s doorways. One outstanding security lab now makes use of a sled that resembles a pickup for its aspect crash checks. However they will’t differ the dimensions and the peak of it.
The situations of a laboratory can also’t mimic that horrible intersection in your technique to work the place everybody misunderstands the flip lanes. And crash checks don’t have a automobile following too carefully behind the automobile that crashes.
Actual-world crash knowledge will help plug a number of the gaps. But it surely’s chaotic as a result of crashes are as a lot about driver security as automobile security.
Additionally see: 7 must-have security options on your subsequent automobile
The insurance coverage trade’s security watchdog
America has two main security companies that crash take a look at nearly each automobile on the market. One is the federal authorities’s Nationwide Freeway Site visitors Security Administration (NHTSA — the one which awards the celebrities). It was not concerned on this examine.
The opposite is a security lab funded by a consortium of insurance coverage corporations. Your insurance coverage firm has a monetary curiosity in making accidents uncommon and delicate. So a bunch of insurance coverage corporations works collectively to function the Insurance coverage Institute for Freeway Security (IIHS), which conducts its personal checks.
The IIHS additionally has entry to knowledge from most main insurers – a wealthy supply from which to check real-world accidents. That’s the information fed into this examine.
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About these numbers
The IIHS this week has launched rankings of vehicles based mostly on how usually their drivers die in accidents and the way usually the driving force in a automobile they hit dies.
The company says the numbers “are a helpful companion to the Institute’s security scores, as they seize totally different points of threat.” However nobody determine can exactly inform you which vehicles are most secure.
The IIHS conducts its personal crash checks a security lab funded by a consortium of insurance coverage corporations.
IIHS
The IIHS has revealed figures on how usually drivers die in every mannequin each three years since 1989. This yr, for the primary time, the company additionally thought of how usually the driving force of the opposite automobile in an accident dies.
This yr’s numbers apply to “fatalities that occurred from 2018 to 2021 for autos from the 2020 mannequin yr, in addition to earlier fashions with the identical designs and options.” In some circumstances, they embrace 2017 mannequin yr vehicles “if the autos haven’t been considerably redesigned over the intervening interval.”
To regulate for the truth that some vehicles are extra widespread than others, the Institute thought of demise charges by hundreds of thousands of registered automobile years.
A number of traits
The Mitsubishi Mirage: the subcompact had essentially the most driver deaths.
Mitsubishi
IIHS researchers spot a number of traits within the knowledge.
“We usually discover that smaller autos have excessive driver demise charges as a result of they don’t present as a lot safety, particularly in crashes with bigger, heavier SUVs and pickups,” stated IIHS President David Harkey.
As an example, drivers of the Mitsubishi Mirage
MSBHF
proved extra prone to die in an accident than drivers of every other automobile. The Mirage is certainly one of America’s least-expensive new vehicles. It’s tiny — a subcompact automobile out there as a sedan or a hatchback. The 2020 model lacked superior security options like computerized emergency braking (although the Mirage on supplier tons in the present day does have that expertise).
However some heavy, highly effective autos made the checklist of vehicles with the very best demise charge, too. The IIHS notes, “Six of the 21 autos with the very best driver demise charges for mannequin yr 2020 are variants of the Chevrolet Camaro, Dodge Challenger, Dodge Charger, and Ford
F
Mustang.”
The Dodge Challenger was certainly one of six muscle vehicles on the checklist of the 21 deadliest vehicles.
Stellantis
Muscle vehicles put numerous energy in drivers’ palms for comparatively little cash. “The muscle vehicles on this checklist spotlight {that a} automobile’s picture and the way it’s marketed may contribute to crash threat,” Harkey says.
Luxurious vehicles, in the meantime, have a tendency to guard their occupants higher. “The fashions that rank among the many finest and worst performers on each lists level to the unlucky indisputable fact that automobile value stays a consider highway security,” Harkey stated.
See: The most secure new vehicles of 2023
Methods to use the information
Total, the company says, America’s roads are rising extra harmful. In its 2017 examine, the IIHS discovered a median of 36 deaths per million registered automobile years. In 2020, the quantity rose to 38.
That comes regardless of high-tech security options like computerized emergency braking rising extra widespread.
So how do you defend your self?
Dimension seems to be a part of the reply. Subcompact vehicles, the IIHS says, “had the very best driver demise charges, averaging 153 deaths per million registered automobile years. Very giant luxurious vehicles had the bottom, averaging solely 4 deaths.”
However measurement alone isn’t the reply. It may also profit you to keep away from pickup vehicles until you want one. Six of the ten autos most definitely to kill the opposite driver have been vehicles. Just one truck – the GMC Canyon Crew Cab – seems on the checklist of vehicles with the bottom driver demise charge.
This may occasionally must do with how pickups are constructed. The ladder frames of most trendy pickups permit them to flex to maintain a wheel involved with the bottom on tough terrain. However they don’t maintain up as nicely in crashes because the unibody design of most SUVs.
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The Ram 1500
Ram
And, sadly, spending extra can defend you. “Crash avoidance programs and different superior security options are most frequently normal tools on luxurious autos,” the IIHS notes.
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Notably, the information discovered zero deaths in 4 autos. Just one – the Nissan Pathfinder
NSANY
– is on the market for below $40,000 in the present day.
The Nissan Pathfinder is the one automobile below $40,000 that had zero deaths.
Nissan
2017-2021 vehicles with the very best driver demise charge
| Rank | Mannequin | Driver Deaths per Million Registered Car Years |
| 1 | Mitsubishi Mirage Sedan | 205 |
| 2 | Mitsubishi Mirage Hatchback | 183 |
| 3 | Dodge Challenger | 154 |
| 4 | Hyundai Accent | 152 |
| 5 | Chevrolet Spark | 151 |
| 6 |
Kia KR:000270 Rio Sedan |
122 |
| 7 | Dodge Charger | 118 |
| 8 (tie) | Chevrolet Camaro Convertible | 113 |
| 8 (tie) | Nissan Altima | 113 |
| 10 | Kia Forte | 111 |
2017-2021 vehicles with the bottom driver demise charge
| Rank | Mannequin | Driver Deaths per Million Registered Car Years |
| 1 (tie) |
BMW X3 XE:BMW |
0 |
| 1 (tie) | Lexus ES | 0 |
| 1 (tie) | Mercedes-Benz E-Class Sedan | 0 |
| 1 (tie) | Nissan Pathfinder | 0 |
| 5 (tie) | Audi Q5 | 2 |
| 5 (tie) |
Toyota C-HR TM |
2 |
| 7 (tie) | Nissan Murano | 4 |
| 7(tie) |
Volvo XC90 VLVLY |
4 |
| 9 (tie) | GMC Canyon Crew Cab | 5 |
| 9 (tie) | Lexus RX | 5 |
| 9 (tie) |
Subaru Outback FUJHY |
5 |
| 9 (tie) | Toyota Sienna | 5 |
| 9 (tie) | Volvo XC60 | 5 |
| 10 (tie) | Acura MDX | 6 |
| 10 (tie) | Acura RDX | 6 |
| 10 (tie) | BMW X5 | 6 |
| 10 (tie) | Chevrolet Traverse | 6 |
| 10 (tie) | Ford Edge | 6 |
| 10 (tie) |
Honda Odyssey HMC |
6 |
| 10 (tie) | Lexus NX | 6 |
| 10 (tie) |
Porsche Macan POAHY |
6 |
| 10 (tie) | Subaru Ascent | 6 |
| 10 (tie) | Toyota Tacoma Double Cab Lengthy Mattress | 6 |
2017-2021 vehicles with the very best different driver demise charge
| Rank | Mannequin | Different Driver* Deaths per Million Registered Car Years |
| 1 | Ram 3500 Crew Cab Lengthy Mattress | 189 |
| 2 | Dodge Charger | 164 |
| 3 | Ford F-350 Crew Cab | 147 |
| 4 | Ram 2500 Mega Cab | 154 |
| 5 | Kia Optima | 134 |
| 6 | Kia Rio | 133 |
| 7 | Ram 2500 Crew Cab Quick Mattress | 122 |
| 8 | Ford F-250 Crew Cab | 120 |
| 9 | Dodge Charger | 105 |
| 10 | Ram 1500 Crew Cab Quick Mattress | 104 |
(*Autos most definitely to be concerned in deadly accidents through which the driving force of the opposite automobile died.)
2017-2021 vehicles with the bottom different driver demise charge
| Rank | Mannequin | Different Driver Deaths per Million Registered Car Years |
| 1 | Buick Encore | 6 |
| 2 | Mercedes-Benz E-Class Sedan | 10 |
| 3 | Acura MDX | 14 |
| 4 (tie) | Subaru Ascent | 16 |
| 4 (tie) | Toyota RAV4 | 16 |
| 4 (tie) | Volvo XC60 | 16 |
| 7 | Porsche Macan | 18 |
| 8 (tie) | Chevrolet Bolt EV | 19 |
| 8 (tie) | Chevrolet Trax | 19 |
| 8 (tie) | Honda HR-V | 19 |
| 8 (tie) | Lexus NX 300 | 19 |
| 8 (tie) | Toyota C-HR | 19 |
| 8 (tie) |
Volkswagen Atlas VWAGY |
19 |
KBB’s automobile assessment methodology.
This story initially ran on KBB.com.