These safety-focused cars and SUVs strike the right balance of protection, practicality, and ease of driving.
Choosing an appropriate vehicle for a teen driver means balancing numerous factors. Parents want good crash protection and modern safety technology, but they should also be looking for vehicles that are easy to drive (and park) and unlikely to encourage risky behavior.
For our list of the best cars and SUVs for teen drivers, we started with the Top Safety Pick and Top Safety Pick+ winners awarded by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) . TSP winners are vehicles that perform well in IIHS crash tests, with good headlights and standard pedestrian crash-prevention technology, while TSP+ adds effective vehicle-to-vehicle crash prevention as standard equipment.
Because not all families can afford a separate car for their teens, we’ve chosen several models that can safely serve everyone in the household—including of course your youngest drivers when they come asking you for the keys.