Ready to hand over the car keys to a teenager for the first time? The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety and Consumer Reports are out with a list of cars to help get them safely from point A to point B.
The annual ranking, released Wednesday, lists 96 of the safest new and used vehicles for teens based on crash protection, brakes, headlights, display systems and other features, such as how they handle in emergencies.
“We curate this annual list specifically for teens because driving holds extra risk for them,” Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) Senior Research Scientist Rebecca Weast said in a statement.
The first batch of top-ranked cars includes 29 used vehicles priced below $20,000 and equipped with highly rated headlights and automatic emergency braking. A second grouping features 45 used cars priced under $10,000 that offer “good crash protection” for teen drivers, according to IIHS and CR. Model years for the used vehicles range from 2012 to 2025.
For those in the market for a new vehicle, the list also includes some two dozen 2026 models. These vehicles have all undergone IIHS’s most recent crash tests and have earned safety recognition from IIHS and CR.
The organizations left vehicles off their lists if they were judged to have excessive horsepower relative to their weight, or if cars were marketed for performance. The ranking also excludes minicars, which don’t offer adequate protection in crashes, according to IIHS and CR, as well as large SUVs and large pickups, which they say are more challenging to handle and pose greater risk to others on the road.
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