When you’re diving into New Car Reviews, understanding safety ratings is crucial. These ratings, often presented as star ratings, provide a quick overview of a vehicle’s safety performance. One key metric to look for is the Overall Vehicle Score. This score is designed to give you a comprehensive assessment of how well a vehicle protects occupants in various crash scenarios.
The Overall Vehicle Score isn’t just pulled out of thin air. It’s meticulously calculated using the probabilities of injury determined from frontal and side crash tests, along with projections based on rollover resistance assessments. These individual probabilities are then weighted to reflect the real-world frequency and severity of different crash types. The resulting score is then compared against the average injury risk across all vehicles, indicating whether a specific model poses a higher or lower risk than the norm.
Here’s a breakdown of what the star ratings mean in terms of overall injury risk:
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ = Injury risk much less than average
⭐⭐⭐⭐ = Injury risk less than average to average
⭐⭐⭐ = Injury risk average to greater than average
⭐⭐ = Injury risk greater than average
⭐ = Injury risk much greater than average
It’s vital to remember that comparing Overall Vehicle Scores requires careful consideration. Due to the methodology, you should only compare scores for vehicles within the same class and with similar weights. Specifically, the weight difference should not exceed plus or minus 250 pounds of the vehicle being evaluated.
For example, comparing the safety rating of a 4,500-pound SUV to a 3,000-pound sedan would be inappropriate because they are in different classes and the weight difference is too significant. Similarly, contrasting a 3,600-pound pickup truck with a 3,400-pound minivan isn’t valid due to the class difference, even though they meet the weight criteria. However, it is perfectly acceptable to compare the scores of a 3,400-pound passenger car with another passenger car weighing 3,650 pounds, as they belong to the same class and fall within the acceptable weight range.
Therefore, as you read new car reviews and consider safety, always pay attention to the Overall Vehicle Score. But ensure you’re making relevant comparisons – stick to vehicles in the same class and similar weight category to get a truly meaningful understanding of a car’s safety performance relative to its peers.
