Volvo V40 ranked safest used family car for 2016

The Volvo V40 hatchback has been rated as the Safest Used Family Car 2016, in a new initiative aimed at raising the importance of safety for used car buyers.

The new rankings have been compiled by Co-op Insurance, in conjunction with car safety experts Thatcham Research and road safety charity Brake. Research conducted by Co-op Insurance found that only four per cent of car buyers listed safety at the top of their buying priorities.  By far the most important factor for used car buyers was price, with safety ranking only tenth.

Thatcham Research – the UK’s world-class crash test research centre – came up with a formula to rank affordable family used cars in terms of their safety features.  The qualifying criteria were price (no more than £15,000 on the used car market), CO₂ emissions (no more than 120g/km) and a five-star EuroNCAP rating. All of the cars ranked in the top ten are current models, with the formula  considering a used car to be at least one year old.

UK’s Top 10 safest used family cars

* with optional safety pack

It is important to note that the Volvo V40 ranks at the top when it is fitted with the optional Driver Support Pack, which adds additional safety features like adaptive cruise control, blind spot assist, cross-traffic assist and more.  This pack costs about £2,000 on a new V40, so it won’t be fitted to every used model available to buy and buyers should make an effort to hunt down a V40 with this comprehensive package of features.

Commendations for Volkswagen and Nissan

Finishing just behind the Volvo were the Volkswagen Golf and Nissan Qashqai, which were also highly praised for their safety features.  Crucially, all of the top three cars feature AEB (autonomous emergency braking), which allows the car to automatically apply the brakes if a collisions is imminent and the driver has not taken action to avoid an accident.