Study Names America’s Deadliest Vehicles With The Most Frequent Fatality Rates

Safety is one of the biggest considerations when it comes to buying a new car, but a study from iSeeCars has found the type of vehicle you buy can have a big impact on your survival rate.

While a number of governments and organizations crash test cars to determine their safety, iSeeCars took a different approach. They analyzed fatality data for 2013-2017 model year vehicles from the U.S. Fatality Analysis Reporting System. They then adjusted for exposure by normalizing the “total number of vehicle miles driven, which was estimated from iSeeCars’ data of over 25 million used car sales from model years 2013-2017 sold in 2013-2017.”

As a result, they’ve come up with a list of what they’re calling the “most dangerous cars” in America. Leading the pack is the Mitsubishi Mirage which has a fatal accident rate of 10.2 cars per billion vehicle miles traveled. That’s nearly four times the average rate of 2.6 cars per billion miles.

The Mirage was closely followed by the Chevrolet Corvette which had a fatal accident rate of 9.8. The third place car was the Honda Fit which received a rating of 7.7.

The top ten list was dominated by subcompacts and sports cars. iSeeCars CEO Phong Ly suggested this is due to multiple factors including below-average safety and a lack of driver assistance systems in small vehicles as well as the performance associated with sports cars.

Also Read: Mazda Makes The Safest Cars On The Road, Says IIHS

Speaking of sports cars, these were the deadliest vehicles overall as they had an average fatal accident rate of 4.6 cars per billion miles. Besides the Corvette, the top ten list included the Subaru BRZ (6.9), Nissan 370Z (6.2), Dodge Challenger (5.8) and Chevrolet Camaro (5.5).

Crossovers and SUVs had an average fatal accident rate of 1.7, but two models had more than double that rate – the Kia Sportage (3.8) and Jeep Wrangler (3.6). The Lincoln MKT came is third, which is ironic as the automaker markets the vehicle as a hearse.

On the pickup side, the Nissan Frontier lead the pack with a fatal accident rate of 3.9 vehicles per billion miles traveled. It was followed by the Ram 1500 (2.6) and Chevrolet Silverado 1500 (2.5).