Safest possible car for a Teenager £5k - £15k

[NuckyThompson]

There was a recent RTA near us where a teenager driving a corsa type vehicle collided head on with an Audi Q5 type.

Youngster sadly died but only minor injuries in Q5.

I have a niece similar age plus I'm a dad (my lad only 7 so luckily a few years off driving)


But it got me thinking, what car would you choose for your child if safety is a priority? Obviously you still have to factor in things like cost, insurance and how fast that vehicle can go (particularly if you have a teenage boy)

We've got cars with lane assist, auto brake if you've let go of the wheel/ about to crash etc. Not sure if these electric (software heavy) cars can be speed limited via app / tracked etc

I've set a £5k - £15k budget as that's probably what my niece could stretch to on her own bottom end and £15k top end with help from family.

[raspy]

From what I've read, Tesla in the UK would enable parental controls to be set via the app (e.g. reducing max speed, acceleration and a few other things)

[Al U]

This.

https://www.autotrader.co.uk/car-details/202503059...

[Quhet]

If looking purely at the safest possible then something daft like an XC90 would do it. IIRC there was a ridiculous statistic for a while that they had not been involved in any occupant fatalities or similar.

You could get a reasonable late-ish Mk1 example for say £7.5k and then put the remaining £7.5k aside for maintenance, insurance and fuel.

[chrisman]

Didn't Volvo claim that there had been zero traffic fatalities in the XC90?

[anonymous-user]

Try getting insurance for a 17 year old on anything other than a 1 litre super mini.

[Pickle_Rick]

chrisman said:

Didn't Volvo claim that there had been zero traffic fatalities in the XC90?

The 2020ish model was also found to be most unreliable car you could buy, so can't cause accidents if it's on a ramp on Halfords having a new exhaust and 4 tyres because of a coolant leak.

[Sheepshanks]

Could pick up a Merc S Class for that budget. When Princess Diana died in one Mercedes reportedly said (slightly oddly) that no-one dies in Merc S Classes other than in "catastrophic" accidents.

It's such an unlikely car for a teenager that the insurance might be reasonable - think there was a student on here with one a few years ago.

[RSTurboPaul]

Perhaps setting aside some of that budget for extensive advanced driver training might be an idea.

[NuckyThompson]

Advanced driver training is on the cards for niece as it’ll bring insurance down.

I do wonder if restricted features such as acceleration and top speed would drive insurance down. A bit like a black box.

A 2 tonne X90 vs a 1 tonne corsa probably means the first gets crumpled in a head on regardless of ncap rating?

Other problem based on stereotype if you probably wouldn’t want 17 year old boy racer driving round potentially crashing into someone else in an x90