Mazda Tops Consumer Reports’ New Safety Verdict Brand Rankings

Mazda has landed at the top of Consumer Reports’ newly introduced Safety Verdict brand rankings, a broader scoring system that looks beyond crash-test performance and tries to capture how safe a vehicle is to live with day-to-day, both in avoiding a crash and protecting occupants if one happens.

Consumer Reports’ Safety Verdict approach blends traditional crashworthiness with elements that can matter just as much in the real world, including emergency handling and braking, the availability of key crash-avoidance features as standard equipment, and how easy (or distracting) a vehicle’s controls are to use while driving.

CR summed up the goal in plain language: a safe car should behave predictably in everyday driving and in emergencies, offer controls that don’t pull your attention off the road, include technology that can help prevent a crash, and still deliver strong occupant protection when a crash is unavoidable.

Mazda’s first-place finish put it ahead of brands that are often associated with safety-first reputations, and the next best-performing brands in the Safety Verdict rankings included Genesis, Acura, Lincoln, and Hyundai, according to the published results.

Mazda, for its part, framed the result as validation of its long-running “human-centered” safety philosophy—an approach that leans on a mix of crash protection, driver-assist tech, and vehicle dynamics that are tuned to help drivers stay in control when conditions get messy.

This article was co-written using AI and was then heavily edited and optimized by our editorial team.

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