What do the star ratings measure?

They come from NHTSA's New Car Assessment Program, which crash-tests vehicles and rates them from one to five stars. Separate ratings cover the frontal crash, side crash, and rollover resistance, and an overall rating combines them into a single figure.

Why does a vehicle show Not Rated?

NHTSA does not test every trim or body style, and some tests are not run for a given vehicle. Not Rated means no published star figure exists for that specific test, which is different from a poor result. The overall rating may still be available.

Is this the same as the IIHS Top Safety Pick?

No. NHTSA is the U.S. government program shown here, while the IIHS is a separate insurance-industry organisation with its own tests and Top Safety Pick award. The two programs use different crash scenarios, so a vehicle can score differently in each.

Why am I asked to choose a body style?

A single make and model often covers several body styles that crash differently, such as a sedan versus a wagon. When NHTSA has rated more than one variant, the tool lists them so you can read the ratings for the exact configuration you care about.

Is the lookup free and keyless?

Yes. It uses the public NHTSA SafetyRatings API, which has open CORS and needs no key. The request is made directly from your browser to the government service in two steps: find the variant, then fetch its ratings.

What is the NHTSA Safety Ratings Lookup?

Calls the keyless NHTSA SafetyRatings API to display overall, frontal crash, side crash, and rollover star ratings for a selected vehicle. Presents each test as a visual star widget and links to the full NHTSA safety page for the vehicle. It runs free in your browser on Gera Tools, with nothing uploaded.

NHTSA Safety Ratings Lookup

Name: NHTSA Safety Ratings Lookup
Creator: Gera Tools
License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

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NHTSA’s 5-Star Safety Ratings are the U.S. government’s standardised measure of how a vehicle protects occupants in a crash. This tool pulls those ratings for any rated model year, make, and model, and shows the frontal, side, rollover, and overall scores as clear star widgets.

How it works

The NHTSA SafetyRatings API is hierarchical, so the lookup runs in two keyless steps:

1. /SafetyRatings/modelyear/<y>/make/<m>/model/<mod>  -> rated variants + VehicleId
2. /SafetyRatings/VehicleId/<id>  -> overall, frontal, side, rollover star ratings

When a vehicle has more than one tested body style, the tool lists them so you can pick the exact one. Each returned rating is a value from one to five stars, or Not Rated where NHTSA has not published a figure for that test.

What the four ratings measure

Overall rating — a composite of the three crash categories below, summarised as a single 1–5 star figure. It is the quickest filter when comparing multiple vehicles.

Frontal crash rating — the result of driving the vehicle into a full-width barrier at 35 mph, which simulates a head-on collision with a vehicle of similar mass. The test measures injury likelihood to driver and front passenger separately, so some vehicles show different frontal ratings for each seat position.

Side crash rating — covers two tests: a moving deformable barrier (simulating a side-impact from an SUV or truck) and a pole impact (simulating sliding into a fixed object like a tree or utility pole). Vehicles with strong structural B-pillars and curtain airbags consistently score better here.

Rollover resistance rating — not a crash test but a dynamic handling test that measures a vehicle’s static stability factor (the ratio of track width to centre of gravity height). It is also combined with a dynamic swerving test. SUVs and taller vehicles typically score lower than sedans on rollover resistance because of a higher centre of gravity.

NHTSA vs. IIHS: what is the difference?

The ratings from this tool come from the NHTSA New Car Assessment Program, a U.S. government program. The IIHS Top Safety Pick award is issued by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, a separate non-profit funded by insurers. The two programs use different crash scenarios:

NHTSA tests include a full-width frontal barrier and a moving side barrier.
IIHS tests include a 40% offset frontal overlap (simulating a glancing front collision) and a small-overlap test on the driver’s side, which is generally harder to pass.

A vehicle can earn five stars from NHTSA and fail to earn an IIHS Top Safety Pick, or vice versa. Checking both is the most complete safety picture before a purchase.

Reading the results

5 stars: 10% or less chance of serious injury in this crash type (by NHTSA’s modelling).
4 stars: 11–20% chance.
3 stars: 21–35% chance.
Not Rated: NHTSA has not published a figure for this specific vehicle and test — it means untested, not unsafe.

Follow the NHTSA.gov link in the results to see the full test report, including occupant measurements and video footage of the crash test where available.