The most dangerous vehicles of 2009

By Hannah Elliott

updated 1:12 p.m. ET Feb. 25, 2009

Earlier this month, 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.

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

All three indicate that there's no single type of vehicle to avoid, based on our list — it features small cars, SUVs and even trucks. Mid-size sedans, crossovers and wagons are completely absent from the list.

Avoiding purchasing any car on this list, however, could be a rush to judgment. Along with taking these ratings into consideration, consumers should think about where they live and what kind of driving they do, as that will determine what kind of car will suit them best.

Those who live in urban centers and rarely venture onto the highway, for example, might need only a small auto in which to skip around town. At slower speeds on less perilous roads, a lower safety rating won't matter much.

Also, some cars on our list performed satisfactorily under certain tests, but worse on others. Jeep's Liberty and Wrangler, for example, both received "good" front-impact ratings from IIHS. But their lackluster performance in rear and side crashes relegated them to our list. (Wrangler doors are removable, which affects their strength.)

Along with the Jeeps, several light trucks found their way onto the list as well, mostly for their poor rear-crash results as well as their propensity to roll over. The Ford Ranger and Mazda B Series, both light pickups, each earned "poor" rear-impact ratings from IIHS, and three out of five stars from NHTSA's rollover tests.

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