Safety Rating

A safety rating is a standardized score that estimates how well a vehicle protects occupants in a crash and, increasingly, how effectively it helps drivers avoid a crash in the first place. In the United States, two organizations dominate safety ratings: the federal National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), which runs the New Car Assessment Program (NCAP), and the private Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS). Both test new vehicles, but their ratings remain useful to used car shoppers because a 2019 model’s crash performance generally still applies to that same 2019 vehicle on a dealer lot today.

NHTSA’s 5-Star Safety Ratings evaluate three core areas:

• Frontal crash protection (driver and front passenger)
• Side crash protection (side barrier and side pole tests)
• Rollover resistance, based on a dynamic maneuver and vehicle geometry

Each vehicle receives an overall star rating from 1 to 5. IIHS uses a different scale — Good, Acceptable, Marginal, or Poor — across tests such as the small overlap front, moderate overlap front, side, roof strength, and head restraint evaluations. Vehicles that excel across tests and include effective crash-avoidance tech may earn Top Safety Pick or Top Safety Pick+ designations.

For example, a 2020 Toyota Camry earned a 5-star NHTSA overall rating and an IIHS Top Safety Pick+ award, while some older or smaller vehicles in the same price range received only 3 or 4 stars and mixed IIHS results.

Why should used car shoppers care? A safety rating is one of the most objective, apples-to-apples comparisons you can make between two used vehicles in your budget. But ratings alone are not the full picture:

• Check the NHTSA recall database by VIN to confirm all open recalls have been repaired — repairs are free from the dealer.
• Review NHTSA complaints and investigations for patterns such as brake, airbag, or transmission issues.
• Compare EPA fuel economy estimates at FuelEconomy.gov alongside safety data so you balance long-term operating cost with crash protection.
• Remember that test protocols change; a 5-star rating from 2011 is not directly comparable to a 5-star rating from 2023.

Treating the safety rating as a starting point — then layering in recall status, complaint history, and fuel economy — gives you a far more complete view of any used vehicle you’re considering.

About this entry

Reviewed by the CarCabin editorial team. Updated when terminology or underlying data changes.