I've been considering getting a new, safer car and I am wondering how to best utilize the data available. Organizations like the IIHS and NHTSA publish information on crash test performance and safety features, and have lists of cars which should theoretically be the safest. There's also data on driver death rates, fatal accidents, and crashes by make and model.

Assuming the data is accurate, what would be a good way of approaching it to find the safest car in practice? My thinking is that the lists of safest cars should be a fairly reliable way to quickly find top contenders, and then the ones that are the safest should have the lowest driver deaths per miles driven (available in the IIHS Status Reports).

An obvious problem with this is that there's no way to factor in the driver's capability, road conditions, and other important external factors. There's also no data on new models (as there hasn't been enough time to collect it), so I would be estimating the rates of those based on the previous years' models. Another issue is that many have zero deaths recorded, which makes for lower resolution comparisons.

What else should I consider, and what other important factors am I not thinking of if my end goal is finding cars that are really a cut above the rest in terms of safety?

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