Providing peace of mind and protection in the event of an accident, car safety features will always be an important factor when choosing your next car, particularly for those who are looking for a small family-friendly runaround.
Car manufacturers are well aware of this, and have spent the last few years fitting their new superminis with more on-board safety systems that even the most expensive luxury cars had a decade or so ago.
Constantly assessing this is independent crash tester Euro NCAP, which regularly tests new cars in every aspect of vehicle safety. Testing all body sizes from pint-sized city cars to chunky people carriers, Euro NCAP rates each car in four areas: adult occupant protection, child occupant protection, vulnerable road user protection (mainly cyclists and pedestrians) and safety assistance technology (accident avoidance and mitigation). The car is then given an overall star rating out of five.
So, with that in mind, which new small cars are the safest? We have listed our top five picks below, and we have also highlighted some small cars to avoid, as they have fallen well short of Euro NCAP’s benchmarks.
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Here at The Car Expert, we firmly believe that safety is a core component of any new car. Unlike most new car reviews that only report the headline score and don’t bother updating it over time, our unique Expert Rating Index includes the full Euro NCAP results for all cars tested and is kept up to date as ratings change or expire.
Five of the safest new small cars
All of our picks below have been given a five-star safety rating from Euro NCAP and are fitted with features to both help prevent collisions and protect ooccupants if a crash can’t be avoided. These include autonomous emergency braking, software to detect driver fatigue and a system to notify emergency services when a crash happens.
| Small car | Year tested | Adult occupant protection | Child occupant protection | Vunerable road user protection | Safety assistance technology |
| Volkswagen Polo | 2022 | 94% | 80% | 70% | 70% |
| Skoda Fabia | 2021 | 85% | 81% | 70% | 71% |
| Toyota Yaris | 2020 | 86% | 81% | 78% | 85% |
| Audi A1 | 2019 | 95% | 85% | 73% | 80% |
| SEAT Ibiza | 2017 | 95% | 77% | 76% | 60% |
Volkswagen Polo
The latest small car to go through rigorous Euro NCAP testing, the facelifted version of the Volkswagen Polo passed with flying colours, highlighted for its impressive driver and passenger protection in the event of a collision.
This is the second time the Polo has been awarded a five-star rating from Euro NCAP, after its first crash test in late 2017. While it’s not best-in-class in any of the four safety test scores, it’s a very good all-rounder with high scores in each category.
The Volkswagen Polo currently holds a very good Expert Rating of 74% in our industry-leading Expert Rating Index, which puts it right up near the top of the small car segment.
Skoda Fabia
Arriving on UK roads late last year, the current-generation Skoda Fabia was tested by Euro NCAP in December 2021. Despite Skoda being the budget brand of the Volkswagen Group, it still scored a five-star rating.
Like the Volkswagen Polo, the Fabia performed well in every category. That said, the Fabia was slightly behind the Polo in its adult occupant protection score.
The Skoda Fabia currently holds an excellent Expert Rating of 76%, and was awarded ‘Best New Small Car‘ at the The Car Expert Awards in 2021.
Toyota Yaris
The Toyota Yaris was the first car to be put through Euro NCAP’s tougher 2020 crash testing regime, and it performed exceptionally well.
The Yaris recorded very good protection scores for both adults and children, and also received outstanding scores for the protection of vulnerable road users like pedestrians and cyclists. Euro NCAP was also impressed by the long list of accident avoidance technology fitted to the Yaris as standard – giving the supermini a safety assistance rating that trumps most bigger and more expensive cars.
The Toyota Yaris currently holds an Expert Rating of 67% according to our Expert Rating Index. If you do most of your driving in busy urban streets, the excellent safety systems provided as standard in the Yaris will help reduce your chances of getting into an accident.
Audi A1
The Audi A1 was tested by Euro NCAP at the end of 2019 and received some very favourable scores, which is not surprising as it’s built on the same platform as the Volkswagen Polo. Euro NCAP highlighted the A1 for its convincing protection against driver and passenger whiplash in the event of a crash, and for its effective accident avoidance technology.
In addition to an outstanding score for adult protection and very good scores for accident avoidance, the Audi has the highest score of the five cars on this list for child protection, which should be of considerable interest to parents when choosing a new car.
The Audi A1 currently holds an Expert Rating of 62%, which is the lowest of the five cars on this list. Mostly that stems from its higher price tag relative to a Volkswagen Polo or SEAT Ibiza.
SEAT Ibiza
The SEAT Ibiza’s five-star crash test rating was awarded in 2017, and while Euro NCAP has tightened its testing protocols since then, its scores are still competitive – including the equal-best score for adult protection score in this list.
One area that shows how standards have improved in the last five years is that the Ibiza isn’t as well equipped the other cars on this list for accident avoidance technology. This is crucial as – obviously – avoiding an accident altogether is better than surviving one.
The SEAT Ibiza currently holds an Expert Rating of 74%, which is right at the top of our small car rankings. Now that it has been around for five years, there are plenty of Ibizas around on the used-car market, meaning you can pick up a very safe small car at a reasonable price.
Superminis that miss the mark on safety
Unfortunately, not every car manufacturer places the same emphasis on safety that the brands above have shown. The following three cars performed poorly, with scores in every category that fall well short of similar vehicles.
In fact, two of these three vehicles are among the worst scorers ever tested by Euro NCAP. They offer far less protection for drivers, passengers, pedestrians and other vehicles in a collision, and are generally terrible at preventing collisions taking place at all.
| Small car | Year tested | Adult occupant score | Child occupant score | Vulnerable road user protection | Safety assistance technology |
| Renault Zoe | 2021 | 43% | 52% | 41% | 14% |
| Dacia Sandero | 2021 | 70% | 72% | 41% | 42% |
| Fiat Panda | 2018 | 45% | 16% | 47% | 7% |
Renault Zoe
The Renault Zoe used to be a poster child for electric car adoption, but a woeful zero-star Euro NCAP rating means it can no longer be recommended to anyone.
If you like small Renaults and you want to be safe, the Renault Clio has a five-star Euro NCAP rating and stacks up well in all areas – even if it doesn’t quite make our top five list above. That makes it even more surprising that the similarly-sized (and far more expensive) Renault Zoe performed so very badly when it was crash tested in late 2021.
Renault decided to remove the head airbags on the current-generation Zoe (they were standard on the previous model), which has directly resulted in an adult occupant crash protection score of just 43% – a score that UK safety body Thatcham Research says is the “lowest we have seen in 11 years”.
The Zoe is not competent when it comes to avoiding an accident, either, as it misses out on most safety assistance features that are readily available on many other small cars.
Dacia Sandero
The Dacia Sandero does many things well and is very cheap compared to most other small cars, but it drops the ball on safety. After receiving a disappointing two-star safety rating from Euro NCAP in 2021, many motoring titles reduced their review scores and What Car? revoked its Car of the Year award, which was embarrassing for both Dacia and the magazine.
The Sandero actually performs reasonably in impact tests for both adults and children, especially for a budget car, which Euro NCAP described as being about a four-star level. But the Sandero is poor at avoiding a collision. Compared to other small cars, the Dacia’s emergency braking system is unable to properly detect vulnerable road users, increasing the risk of collisions with pedestrians and cyclists.
Fiat Panda
The Fiat Panda was tested by Euro NCAP back in 2018 and received a dismal zero-star rating. While the smaller Fiat 500 city car achieved a more respectable three-star rating, the Panda was given the worst new car safety scores in Euro NCAP history, including a child protection score of 16% and an accident avoidance score of just 7%.
That said, the Panda is a reflection of how safety standards have increased over the last decade – the same model was tested by Euro NCAP when it launched in 2011 and received an acceptable four-star rating.
Seemingly unfazed by its woeful rating, Fiat has not given the Panda any safety-related upgrades since the model launched, and the car is still on sale four years later. This is one Panda that needs to become extinct.
This article was originally published in March 2022, and was updated in March 2023.
