| Every year, the Insurance Institute for Highway | | | | Minivans |
| Safety (IIHS) rates passenger vehicles' ability to | | | | No vehicles earned a gold or silver rating, most |
| hold up in a crash as good, acceptable, marginal or | | | | because their seat/head restraints only earned |
| poor. They break cars down into four size | | | | marginal or poor ratings. |
| categories: large, midsize, small and minivans, and | | | | Least-Safe Vehicles of 2006 |
| base their ratings on front, side and rear safety | | | | The following vehicles earned "poor" ratings on |
| tests. | | | | both the side and rear safety tests that the IIHS |
| The vehicles that earn good ratings in each test | | | | conducted. |
| category (front, side and rear) are given gold | | | | Side impact tests measure how well a passenger |
| ratings, while those that earn good front and side | | | | is protected when a vehicle is hit in the side by an |
| ratings and acceptable rear ratings are given a | | | | SUV or pickup. |
| silver rating. | | | | The rear safety tests measure how well a seat |
| Test results are only comparable among vehicles | | | | head restraint protects a passenger against neck |
| of similar weight, as larger vehicles are generally | | | | injury in rear impacts at low to moderate speeds. |
| more protective than smaller ones. | | | | Hyundai Elantra |
| IIHS Top Safety Picks for 2006 | | | | Kia Optima |
| Large | | | | Mazda6 |
| GOLD: Ford Five Hundred with optional side | | | | Nissan Sentra |
| airbags | | | | Suzuki Forenza |
| GOLD: Mercury Montego with optional side airbags | | | | Toyota Corolla |
| SILVER: Audi A6 | | | | Mazda MPV without optional side airbags |
| Midsize | | | | Note: The National Highway Traffic Safety |
| GOLD: Saab 9-3 | | | | Administration (NHTSA) also conducts safety |
| GOLD: Subaru Legacy | | | | tests for frontal and side impacts (not rear). |
| SILVER: Audi A3 | | | | However, their rankings are based on a different |
| SILVER: Audi A4 | | | | scale (one to five stars) and test for different |
| SILVER: Chevrolet Malibu with optional side airbags | | | | things than the IIHS tests. When the same two |
| SILVER: Volkswagen Jetta | | | | cars are compared using both IIHS ratings and |
| SILVER: Volkswagen Passat | | | | NHTSA ratings, the ratings are often |
| Small | | | | contradictory. |
| GOLD: Honda Civic | | | | |