A Practical Guide to Safety Ratings

As you research your next vehicle, one of the areas where you will most likely concentrate on is safety. You check out the safety ratings from critics like Edmunds.com and US News & World Report as well as official organizations like the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). Even after reading the ratings, you may not understand what they mean.

NHTSA Rating

The rating from NHTSA uses five stars to indicate how safe a vehicle is. Three tests determine the crashworthiness of the vehicle.

• First test is a frontal crash into a fixed barrier at speeds of 35 mph. In practical terms, this test tells you how a vehicle would fare in a head-on crash. 
• Second test is actually a combination of two tests for the side impact. The first is a T-bone crash from another vehicle traveling at 38.5 mph. The second is a side impact with a pole. This test measures how well your vehicle would hold up if hit in an intersection or if it spins out of control and hits a stable object on the side of the vehicle.
• The third test is the rollover rating, which isn’t a test at all, but a formula to determine how easy it would be for the vehicle to roll over in an accident.

The results of each of the tests are listed separately, but the NHTSA also provides an overall score to show the safety of the model.

IIHS Top Safety Ratings

The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety labels vehicles as the Top Safety Pick or Top Safety Pick+ based on criteria it compiles. IIHS is funded by insurance companies to determine the safety of various models. Five crash tests determine the ratings for the vehicle. The outcome is Poor, Marginal, Acceptable, and Good.

• First test is the small-overlap front test to determine how the vehicle holds up when striking a barrier at 40 mph with 25 percent of the width of the front of the vehicle.
• Second test is the moderate-overlap front test where the vehicle strikes a barrier at 40 mph with more than 25 percent of the front.
• Third test is a side test where the barrier of a moving vehicle hits the car at 31 mph.
• The next test is of roof strength where a metal plate is pushed against the roof of the tested vehicle to discover how difficult it would be to collapse in a rollover.
• Final test is for the head restraints and seats to determine the force against the driver’s head and neck.

You can find all winners on the IIHS website with the individual test results. You can also search by model if you want information on a particular vehicle.

Making Your Decision on Safety

Neither test is better than the other. Both are valuable for your research, and their findings are often what online reviewers use in their own reviews. Many times, the testing agencies will test the different models with and without additional safety equipment.

The NHTSA recommends looking at vehicles with driver assistance technologies. Such as forward collision warning, lane departure warning, automatic emergency braking, and a rearview video system.

As you do your research on the safety of vehicles that you are interested in purchasing, you will have a better idea of what those ratings mean. Therefore, you can use them for peace of mind as you select your next new ride.