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