[dancek]

That's an understatement. According to that data, the most dangerous cars are infinitely more dangerous than the safest cars (205 driver deaths per million registered vehicle years vs. 0). Even more interestingly, the fifth safest car is infinitely more dangerous than the safest four cars (2 vs 0).

Also note that this is the driver death rate. The death rates for other people are vastly different.

You shouldn't jump to conclusions from the data, either. A Dodge Challenger (3rd most driver deaths) is probably not unsafe per se, it just attracts people that want to take unnecessary risks.

Driving is quite safe on average. In my home country there's 5.1 deaths per a billion vehicle kilometers. That's about one death every 2.5 million hours of driving at highway speed. Many other things carry a greater risk of death.

[_yb2s]

Traffic accidents are still the leading cause of death in older children and young adults... as a parent, it is by far the most important safety factor I have any control over.

That is a good point about confounding factors based on who buys these cars, but overall it is pretty clear that most of the safest vehicles are larger cars and mid-sized SUVs from the higher end Japanese and European companies. They are all vehicles that are both heavy and have car like safety features.