It's hard to find a car that could be called "unsafe" today. The cheapest new econobox is packed with safety features that literally did not exist just 25 years ago. Side curtain airbags. Electronic stability control. Stuff like that. But, how do I establish what the "least safe" car is?
First off, there are oodles of low-production, relatively obscure cars with little or no crash test data around the world - so this is USA-market only, and only stuff that is fairly common - I'd say a reasonable cutoff is 5,000 sales, with some possible exceptions (e.g. a car that once sold well over 5,000 per year in the last decade or so but has lost popularity). Yes, a Peel P50 replica built in 2020 is going to be much, much less safe than the least safe cars of today - or 40 years ago.
One might think that going with overall death rates would be a good way to determine the safest (and least safe) cars, but there are several problems with this ideology. First off, death rates take several years to come out after the car has been made. Cars have to be sold and be on the road a few years before a reliable figure of how many people are getting killed in crashes come out. Second, death rates depend heavily on the drivers. Give a 16-year-old, overconfident, lead-footed driver a Top Safety Pick rated car from today and they'll still be more likely to get killed or injured in a crash than a 50-year-old in the least safe car from 20 years ago who always obeys every rule of the road and has never had a ticket or at-fault wreck.
Today (2020 model year): The list of 2020-model cars that don't make Good ratings in all four IIHS crash tests that are not the small overlap tests is short: the Mitsubishi Mirage G4 (side), BMW i3 (rear), Chevy Camaro (roof strength), Dodge Challenger (roof strength and rear), Mitsubishi Outlander plug-in hybrid (rear), Chevy Colorado/GMC Canyon (side), Nissan Frontier (rear), and Toyota Tundra (roof). All of these non-Good ratings were Acceptable, the second-highest rating; Marginal and Poor ratings are extinct, outside of a few small overlap test results. Only the Fiat 500L, Dodge Grand Caravan, Dodge Journey, Jeep Grand Cherokee, and the aforementioned Tundra maintain a Poor rating in one of the small overlap tests for their 2020 model year. Going over to NHTSA's side, only one vehicle - the Ford Transit - has the dubious distinction of having a rating of only 3 stars out of 5 overall. Some two-thirds of vehicles get 5 stars.
Most of these vehicles are midsize or larger, putting them at a safety advantage compared to small cars with equivalent crash test ratings. That leaves us with the Fiat 500L, BMW i3, and Mitsubishi Mirage G4. The i3 got an Acceptable rear-impact rating only because the dummy's head contacted the seat six milliseconds too late (76 ms vs a requirement of 70 or less for a Good rating), though it did have the "Low" force rating needed. The i3's crash test results are otherwise fully competitive, so it's not the least safe by a long shot.
Despite the Fiat 500L's Poor small overlap performance, the Mitsubishi Mirage G4 still only got a Marginal in that test; combined with being only one of two vehicles that fell short of a Good side impact rating and its 4-star NHTSA overall rating, the Mitsubishi Mirage G4 earns the dubious distinction of being 2020's least safe vehicle, at least according to this writer's analysis.
First off, there are oodles of low-production, relatively obscure cars with little or no crash test data around the world - so this is USA-market only, and only stuff that is fairly common - I'd say a reasonable cutoff is 5,000 sales, with some possible exceptions (e.g. a car that once sold well over 5,000 per year in the last decade or so but has lost popularity). Yes, a Peel P50 replica built in 2020 is going to be much, much less safe than the least safe cars of today - or 40 years ago.
One might think that going with overall death rates would be a good way to determine the safest (and least safe) cars, but there are several problems with this ideology. First off, death rates take several years to come out after the car has been made. Cars have to be sold and be on the road a few years before a reliable figure of how many people are getting killed in crashes come out. Second, death rates depend heavily on the drivers. Give a 16-year-old, overconfident, lead-footed driver a Top Safety Pick rated car from today and they'll still be more likely to get killed or injured in a crash than a 50-year-old in the least safe car from 20 years ago who always obeys every rule of the road and has never had a ticket or at-fault wreck.
Today (2020 model year): The list of 2020-model cars that don't make Good ratings in all four IIHS crash tests that are not the small overlap tests is short: the Mitsubishi Mirage G4 (side), BMW i3 (rear), Chevy Camaro (roof strength), Dodge Challenger (roof strength and rear), Mitsubishi Outlander plug-in hybrid (rear), Chevy Colorado/GMC Canyon (side), Nissan Frontier (rear), and Toyota Tundra (roof). All of these non-Good ratings were Acceptable, the second-highest rating; Marginal and Poor ratings are extinct, outside of a few small overlap test results. Only the Fiat 500L, Dodge Grand Caravan, Dodge Journey, Jeep Grand Cherokee, and the aforementioned Tundra maintain a Poor rating in one of the small overlap tests for their 2020 model year. Going over to NHTSA's side, only one vehicle - the Ford Transit - has the dubious distinction of having a rating of only 3 stars out of 5 overall. Some two-thirds of vehicles get 5 stars.
Most of these vehicles are midsize or larger, putting them at a safety advantage compared to small cars with equivalent crash test ratings. That leaves us with the Fiat 500L, BMW i3, and Mitsubishi Mirage G4. The i3 got an Acceptable rear-impact rating only because the dummy's head contacted the seat six milliseconds too late (76 ms vs a requirement of 70 or less for a Good rating), though it did have the "Low" force rating needed. The i3's crash test results are otherwise fully competitive, so it's not the least safe by a long shot.
Despite the Fiat 500L's Poor small overlap performance, the Mitsubishi Mirage G4 still only got a Marginal in that test; combined with being only one of two vehicles that fell short of a Good side impact rating and its 4-star NHTSA overall rating, the Mitsubishi Mirage G4 earns the dubious distinction of being 2020's least safe vehicle, at least according to this writer's analysis.
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