Consumer Reports safest cars

What would you suppose was the safer car, a Mini Cooper or a Chevrolet Suburban? Turns out it’s the Cooper. That’s one of the more surprising findings in a new Driver Death Rate report from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety.

This IIHS study calculated driver death rates specifically for 2011 models, using government crash-fatality data for the 2009 through 2012 calendar years. Also included were substantially identical models to the 2011s, where they existed, from prior model years.

The average for the whole fleet came out at 28 driver deaths per million registered vehicle years. (A registered vehicle year is one car driven for one year.)

Here are some key findings:

The researchers adjusted the data to minimize, so far as possible, such demographic factors as the age and sex of the driver. While all such confounding factors couldn’t be isolated, the large model-to-model differences seem to have more to do with the vehicles’ design and equipment than on who was driving them. (See our guide to the models with advanced safety features.)

While focusing on 2011 models means that the findings aren’t necessarily relevant to most 2015 models on sale now, the long-term trend of ever-improving safety technology and structural design bodes well for the newest cars. And used-car buyers may do well to take this death-rate history into account when shopping for their next set of wheels.