About Informed for Life

For years, there was a non-profit website at informedforlife.org that provided vehicle safety information in a way no other site did — combining crash test results with real-world outcome data. It was run by a retired researcher who maintained it as a public service. I personally found it incredibly useful when making vehicle purchasing decisions for my family.

Eventually the domain lapsed, and the data disappeared from the internet. I was motivated to recreate and significantly expand the concept, applying modern data analysis techniques to the same fundamental question: which vehicles actually keep their occupants alive?

This site is the result — an independent, privately operated research project that builds on the original idea while adding substantial new analysis, interactive tools, and broader coverage.

Informed for Life is created and maintained by a single researcher with a PhD in Computer Science from Stanford University.

Vehicle safety analysis is fundamentally a problem of synthesizing competing signals from multiple data sources — crash test laboratories, real-world mortality statistics, insurance claims, and demographic adjustments — each with their own biases and limitations. Deciding how to weight and combine these signals into actionable rankings requires rigorous data analysis and transparent methodology.

This site is not affiliated with any automaker, dealership, insurance company, or vehicle review publication. I don't receive commissions for recommending specific vehicles. The rankings are produced by a deterministic algorithm — the same inputs always produce the same outputs — and the complete methodology is published transparently.

Every data point on this site is traceable to a primary source. We do not create original crash test data — we analyze, contextualize, and synthesize data from the world's leading vehicle safety research organizations:

We update our rankings whenever IIHS publishes new Top Safety Pick awards or death rate data. The most recent update was on April 9, 2026.

In addition to our core vehicle rankings, we produce original research articles and analysis on topics where we believe we can add genuine insight:

• The Tesla Safety Paradox — Why Tesla aces crash tests but has above-average death rates, with evidence for and against four competing hypotheses
• Risk in Cigarettes — Converting IIHS death rates into life-expectancy equivalents using published medical research
• Crash Tests vs. Death Rates — Interactive scatter plot showing the correlation (and divergence) between lab performance and real-world outcomes
• Danger to Others — Which vehicles kill other drivers and pedestrians at the highest rates
• AWD Safety Science — Does all-wheel drive save lives? The surprising evidence from IIHS and Swedish crash data
• Updated IIHS Crash Tests — How the 2022–2023 test changes made tests 82% harder and why it matters
• How to Choose a Safer Car — An evidence-based guide for any budget level

We believe intellectual honesty requires acknowledging the limitations of our own approach:

• Death rates are not purely about vehicle design. They also reflect who drives each type of vehicle. Minivans have low death rates partly because cautious parents drive them. IIHS adjusts for driver age and sex, but behavioral factors cannot be fully eliminated.
• Class-level death rates approximate individual model risk. Two midsize SUVs may have different crash structures, but both inherit the same class death rate in our formula.
• Crash tests cover specific, repeatable scenarios. Real-world crashes are infinitely varied. A "Good" rating at 40 mph doesn't guarantee the same at 60 mph or at a different angle.
• We are a single researcher, not a testing laboratory. We don't conduct our own crash tests. Our value lies in analysis, synthesis, and transparent presentation of primary data.

For a complete discussion of our methodology, scoring formula, and data sources, see our full methodology page.