Leaderboard
Safest vehicles by NHTSA rating
Top-rated vehicles from the NHTSA New Car Assessment Program (NCAP) crash-test ratings, covering more than 13,000 model-year records since 1990.
Data updated May 2026
According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), 2,107 vehicle model-years carry a published NCAP crash-test rating, and 1,439 of them earned the top 5-star overall score as of June 2026. The leaderboard below ranks the safest-rated vehicles; read our methodology for how NHTSA combines frontal, side, and rollover crash tests.
Top 100 Safest Model Years
About NHTSA Safety Ratings
NHTSA's New Car Assessment Program (NCAP) rates vehicles using crash test results in three areas:
- Frontal Crash: Full-width barrier test at 35 mph
- Side Crash: Side barrier and side pole impact tests
- Rollover: Static stability factor measuring rollover resistance
Data source: National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). Ratings are not comparable across different weight classes.
Every figure on PlainCars is rendered directly from NHTSA complaint and safety data, no number is typed in by an editor. This page draws directly on NHTSA complaint and safety data, no figure is typed in by an editor. See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error.