We all have different priorities when looking for a new car and regardless of what they are, it always shocks me about how little attention people pay to the safety ratings of vehicles before they buy.
The Insurance Institue for Highway Safety, Consumer Reports, and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration all take safety into account when evaluating new vehicles. Add in J.D Power’s initial Qualidy Index Score and voila: you’ve got the necessary ingredients to form a “most dangerous vehicles” list. Specific data used to formulate the list included poor quality/reliability scores as well as crash test scores. The vehicles on the list linked to the latter had various poor crash test scores included rear crash, side crash and rollover crash tests.
If the pic and title didn’t give it away, the Ram pickup took top honours. Following the Ram are:
1. Ram pickup
2. Chevrolet Colorado Super Cab
3. Mazda CX-7
4. Mazda CX-9
5. Nissan Pathfinder
6. Jeep Wrangler
7. Suzuki SX4
As further proof that most people don’t consider safety when purchasing a new vehicle, a fair amount of vehicles on that list are seeing sales soar over this time last year. The ‘most dangerous’ title may be a bit dramatic, but hopefully it will grab the attention of automakers forcing them to pay more attention to these issues when these vehicles are in development.
[The Truth About Cars]
