Most Dangerous Vehicles of 2009

These cars and trucks scored the worst in crash test and rollover ratings for the model year

Earlier this week, Ford Motor and General Motors announced dismal sales results for the month of January. With all the industry’s giants–even Toyota–struggling so mightily, it’s a wonder how any automaker can survive the global recession by continuing to crank out unsafe cars.

Still, they do–scores of them. In good times and bad alike, automakers design, build, produce and sell dozens of models that fail to impress in crash and rollover tests. The 2009 model year is no exception.

“Definitely the economy is going to play a big role in some of this stuff,” says Doug Scott, senior vice president of GfK Automotive, a market research and consulting firm. “Things like safety are probably, if not put on hold, then money will simply be pulled from these sorts of things toward something else.”

Behind the Numbers
To compile our list of the most dangerous vehicles of 2009, we used crash results from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety and rollover ratings from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. NHTSA awards up to five stars for rollover safety, while IIHS uses a scale of “good,” “acceptable,” “marginal” and “poor.”

After each IIHS crash, the test dummies are checked for trauma in 28 regions for front crashes and 37 regions for side crashes, with each region earning a rating based on specific parameters for trauma. A “poor” rating means severe and possibly fatal trauma happened to drivers and/or passengers during the crash, while a “good” rating means little to no trauma occurred.

We awarded point values for each NHTSA and IIHS rating, with more points awarded for better results. The 16 cars on our list scored the lowest number of total points.

Among the lowest-scoring are the Chevrolet Trailblazer SUV, the Kia Rio small sedan and the Ford Ranger pickup.

Chevrolet Aveo, $12,625; Mini Car
Front: Acceptable
Side: Marginal
Rear: Poor
Rollover: 4/5 Stars

Chevrolet Colorado, $18,555; Small Pickup
Front: Acceptable
Side: Poor
Rear: Marginal
Rollover: 4/5 stars

Chevrolet Trailblazer, $29,900; Mid-size SUV
Front: Acceptable
Side: Marginal
Rear: Poor
Rollover: 3/5 stars

Chrysler PT Cruiser, $18470; Small Car
Front: Good
Side: Poor
Rear: Poor
Rollover: 4/5 stars

Dodge Nitro, $22,685; Mid-size SUV
Front: Good
Side: Marginal
Rear: Poor
Rollover: 3/5 stars

Ford Ranger, $15,835; Small Pickup
Front: Acceptable
Side: Marginal
Rear: Poor
Rollover: 3/5 stars

GMC Canyon, $17,430; Small Pickup
Front: Acceptable
Side: Poor
Rear: Marginal
Rollover: 4/5 stars

GMC Envoy, $31,370; Mid-size SUV
Front: Acceptable
Side: Marginal
Rear: Poor
Rollover: 4/5 stars

Hummer H3, $34,135; Mid-size SUV
Front: Acceptable
Side: Acceptable
Rear: Poor
Rollover: 3/5 stars

Hyundai Accent, $9,970; Mini Car
Front: Acceptable
Side: Poor
Rear: Poor
Rollover: 4/5 stars

Jeep Liberty, $23, 460; Mid-size SUV
Front: Good
Side: Marginal
Rear: Poor
Rollover: 3/5 stars

Jeep Wrangler, $21,210; Small SUV
Front: Good
Side: Poor
Rear: Marginal
Rollover: 4/5 stars

Kia Rio, $12,145; Mini Car
Front: Acceptable
Side: Poor
Rear: Poor
Rollover: 4/5 stars

Mazda B Series, $16,780; Small Pickup
Front: Acceptable
Side: Marginal
Rear: Poor
Rollover: 3/5 stars

Nissan Frontier, $17,460; Small Pickup
Front: Good
Side: Marginal
Rear: Poor
Rollover: 3/5 stars

Suzuki Equator, $22,895; Small Pickup
Front: Good
Side: Marginal
Rear: Poor
Rollover: 3/5 stars

SOURCE: FORBES

Tags: Accent, Aveo, B Series, Canyon, chevrolet, Chrysler, Colorado, Dodge, Envoy, Equator, Ford, Frontier, GMC, H3, Hummer, Hyundai, Jeep, Kia, Liberty, Mazda, mid-size suv, Nissan, Nitro, PT Cruiser, Ranger, Rio, small car, small pickup, Suzuki, Trailblazer, Wrangler

This entry was posted on Monday, February 9th, 2009 at 10:13 am and is filed under In The News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.