The 2009 Used Car Safety Ratings highlight which of 203 second-hand vehicle models, built between 1992 and 2007, rate well and which rate poorly for overall crash safety.
The ratings are based on the latest information from the world's largest database of real-life vehicle crashes, measuring the relative safety performance of used cars based on more than 3.6 million vehicles involved in actual crashes on New Zealand and Australian roads from 1992 to 2007. The study also looked at injuries suffered by more than 740,000 road users in these crashes. The crash and injury data has been analysed and vehicle safety ratings calculated by Monash University's Accident Research Centre.
Of the 203 vehicle models in the study, 26 were rated as excellent and 54 were rated as good. Of the vehicles that did not perform well, 48 rated as marginal, 36 rated as poor and 39 rated as very poor.
It is important that a vehicle offers its occupants good protection from injury in a crash but it is also important that a vehicle offers good protection to other road users, such as pedestrians, cyclists, motorcyclists or the drivers of other vehicles, who may also be involved in a crash. The used car safety rating tables below provide two crash safety ratings: one which rates the vehicle's ability to protect its own driver in the event of a crash and one which rates the vehicle's impact on unprotected road users and drivers of other vehicles in a crash.