How Safe Is Your Car?

Find out which cars and trucks scored the highest on safety ratings.

Each year, the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration's New Car Assessment Program (NCAP) crash tests cars, light trucks, sport utility vehicles, and vans that are new, popular, redesigned, or have improved safety equipment. The vehicles are then rated on how well they protect drivers and passengers during frontal and side collisions.

For testing frontal collisions, crash-test dummies are placed in driver and front passenger seats and secured with the vehicle's seat belts. Vehicles are crashed into a fixed barrier at 35 mph, which is equivalent to a head-on collision between two identical vehicles each moving at 35 mph. For side collisions, testing represents an intersection-type collision with a 3,015-pound barrier moving at 38.5 mph into a standing vehicle. The barrier is covered with crushable material to replicate the front of a vehicle. Side collision star ratings indicate the chance of a life-threatening chest injury for the driver, front seat passenger, and the rear seat passenger.

The program uses a five star system for rating vehicles, with five stars indicating the highest safety rating and one star the lowest. Although it is impossible to assess how well a vehicle provides protection in all circumstances using a single test, NCAP ratings provide a useful basis for comparing vehicle safety.

Click here to see how your car rates.

And to check to see if your vehicle has been recalled for any reason, click here.