IIHS, Consumer Reports release lists of safe, affordable vehicles for teens

(TND) — The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety and Consumer Reports have new lists of safe, affordable vehicles for teenage drivers.

The updates Wednesday include 58 used models that cost between $5,800 and $19,900, along with nearly two dozen new models.

IIHS Research Scientist Rebecca Weast said cost was a big factor in their list.

“We don't want to put this list out and have people’s takeaway be that they are priced out of being safe,” she said.

They found better options in an affordable range this year than in years past, she said.

“More advanced safety features are starting to show up in used cars that are more affordable,” Weast said.

Everything on their lists is a 2014 model year or newer.

IIHS and Consumer Reports put out two lists of used cars, “best choices” and “good choices,” along with a single list of recommended new vehicles.

Teen drivers are three times as likely as adult drivers over the age of 20 to be involved in a fatal crash and about four times as likely to be involved in any kind of police-reported crash, Weast said.

Teens are more likely to be involved in speeding-related crashes or single-vehicle crashes in which they lose control and run off the road, she said.

“So, we want to put teenagers in cars that are highly crashworthy,” Weast said. “They have to score as highly as they can on most of our crash test metrics ... and we also want them to be slightly bigger and heavier. We kind of avoid the extremes. So, we don't want to put kids in very large SUVs, and we also don't want them in teeny tiny micro-mini cars.”

Models from Toyota, Mazda, Honda, Volvo, Subaru, Hyundai, Chevrolet, Kia, Lexus, Nissan, GMC, Ford, Infiniti and BMW all show up on the lists.

A lot of teens get hand-me-downs, so she suggested their recommendations could even be useful for parents of younger children who are currently looking for a new car for themselves.

“This is a great resource, because you're going to put your family in something that's really safe, and you're going to have a car that's (a) very good, solid, safe piece of equipment to hand down to your kid when they start driving,” she said.

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