This Is America's Most Dangerous Car. Wait, There Are More

Bertel Schmitt
by Bertel Schmitt

Most dangerous: Dodge Ram 1500

By now, you probably have heard (enough) of the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) top safety picks. The IIHS provides an Academy Award worthy number of different categories, which assure that anybody can be a winner. But what are America’s most unsafe cars? This remained a secret until 24/7 Wall Street started digging.

Second most dangerous: Chevrolet Colorado Crew Cab

They took the seven current-generation models that received a “marginal” or “poor” rating in two of the four categories. Then, 24/7 Wall St. combined the data with records from Consumer Reports, NHTSA crash safety ratings, and JD Power’s Initial Quality Study, to arrive on a list of “The Most Dangerous Cars in America.”

Third most dangerous: Mazda CX 7

In analyzing the data, it appears that the thumbs downs are pretty much consistent. Models that rated badly in the IIHS rankings usually received similarly poor reviews elsewhere.

Rank Nameplate Make Bad ratings 2011 sales Price JDP IQS1Ram 1500 Dodgeside-marginal; rollover-marginal156,983$22,120 2/52Colorado Crew CabChevroletside-poor; rollover-marginal; rear-marginal31,026$17,475 3/53CX-7Mazdarollover-marginal; rear-marginal35,641$22,190 4/54CX-9Mazdarollover-marginal; rear-marginal34,421$29,725 4/55PathfinderNissanrollover-marginal; rear-marginal25,935$29,290 3/56WranglerJeepside-marginal (2-door); side-poor (4-door); rear-marginal (both)122,460$22,970 3/57SX4Suzukirollover-marginal; rear-marginal12,520$13,849 2/5

Customers appear blasé about the shoddy safety of these cars. Says 24/7 Wall Street:

“The poor ratings of these models do not appear to have affected their sales. In fact, sales of all models are up from last year. In all but one case, according to data provided by Edmunds.com, sales grew at least 19% last year. And while most of these models’ sales are still below 2007 levels, sales the Jeep Wrangler not only increased the most but also jumped 50% since then.”

Now wait: Aren’t these big trucks supposed to be the epitomes of safety, whereas compacts get “I won’t put my kids in those” comments?

Bertel Schmitt
Bertel Schmitt

Bertel Schmitt comes back to journalism after taking a 35 year break in advertising and marketing. He ran and owned advertising agencies in Duesseldorf, Germany, and New York City. Volkswagen A.G. was Bertel's most important corporate account. Schmitt's advertising and marketing career touched many corners of the industry with a special focus on automotive products and services. Since 2004, he lives in Japan and China with his wife <a href="http://www.tomokoandbertel.com"> Tomoko </a>. Bertel Schmitt is a founding board member of the <a href="http://www.offshoresuperseries.com"> Offshore Super Series </a>, an American offshore powerboat racing organization. He is co-owner of the racing team Typhoon.

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  • Grumpydok Grumpydok on Jun 01, 2012

    Does anyone have an opinion on INFORMEDFORLIFE.ORG? It purports to aggregate vehicle WEIGHTS with crash statistics and test results from IIHS and NHTSA. It leaves some holes when there are missing test results, but I wonder if any of you give any credence to the rankings.

  • Marcus128 Marcus128 on Oct 10, 2012

    I can attest how unsafe the colorado is! It doesn't fare too well in accidents and has electrical problems that affect brake lights and other exterior lights that prevent accidents. after two recalls on my'04 for tail lights they would still stop working. It also had cheap parking brakes, problem shifting out of park, stalling at highway speeds, and even brake failure. I didn't feel safe driving this truck and seeing one Colorado suffer severe damage and both the driver and passenger were severly injured but the compact car who rear-ended them was able to walk away I decided even more that my truck was undafe. surprisingly the only recall was the tail lights which was only the tip of the iceburg of safety issurs with the Chevy Colorado!

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    • Marcus128 Marcus128 on Oct 19, 2012

      @parkwood60 I actually had it fail inspection twice for the parking brakes and at less than 50k miles replaced my parking brakes twice which is the first time I've ever had to replace a parking brake on a car. I'm surprised how fast the parking brakes would wear out! One day I had it in Park with the parking brake engaged on a steep driveway and suddenly my truck made a loud noise and started going in reverse. Other times (when my parking brakes weren't wearing out, I would shift it into park and the shifter would slip into reverse but the parking brakes would be able to prevent it from going anywhere. I always make sure I am in park before letting off on the brakes and make sure my parking brakes are set just in case whenever I park my vehicle. There were two recalls on the brake lights for my truck where a switch would malfunction resulting in the taillights not functioning and after the recalls my tail lights would occasionally fail along with a problem (that happened more often in winter) where my power door locks, mirrors, and other electrical components would stop working. I don't understand what you mean by the brake light switch being the cause of it slipping out of park and I always apply my brakes before shifting out of park. What kind of moron would not have their brakes applied when shifting out of park? As for the brake failure on some occasions I would apply my brakes and the only thing that would happen is the brakes would pulsate as if the Anti-Lock Brakes were acting on slippery conditions but the conditions were fine and my truck would never stop unless I turn off the engine. My Brake light problems often got me tickets and often other drivers who nearly rear-ended me would tell me to fix my tail lights then I would take it to a dealer or mechanic and they would be working fine. Sometimes they would work fine right after I turn the truck back on as one cop observed when he pulled me over for my brake lights not working and after he gave me a ticket he noticed as I was leaving that my tail lights started working again when I turned my truck back on. The tail lights would work fine then out of the blue stop working and the connections and wiring were fine. The stalling problem seemed to happen more often in hot weather but basically my transmission would feel sluggish and in some cases (including a highway entrance ramp) my engine would stall.

  • CanadaCraig You can just imagine how quickly the tires are going to wear out on a 5,800 lbs AWD 2024 Dodge Charger.
  • Luke42 I tried FSD for a month in December 2022 on my Model Y and wasn’t impressed.The building-blocks were amazing but sum of the all of those amazing parts was about as useful as Honda Sensing in terms of reducing the driver’s workload.I have a list of fixes I need to see in Autopilot before I blow another $200 renting FSD. But I will try it for free for a month.I would love it if FSD v12 lived up to the hype and my mind were changed. But I have no reason to believe I might be wrong at this point, based on the reviews I’ve read so far. [shrug]. I’m sure I’ll have more to say about it once I get to test it.
  • FormerFF We bought three new and one used car last year, so we won't be visiting any showrooms this year unless a meteor hits one of them. Sorry to hear that Mini has terminated the manual transmission, a Mini could be a fun car to drive with a stick.It appears that 2025 is going to see a significant decrease in the number of models that can be had with a stick. The used car we bought is a Mk 7 GTI with a six speed manual, and my younger daughter and I are enjoying it quite a lot. We'll be hanging on to it for many years.
  • Oberkanone Where is the value here? Magna is assembling the vehicles. The IP is not novel. Just buy the IP at bankruptcy stage for next to nothing.
  • Jalop1991 what, no Turbo trim?
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