The deadliest car in the United States is a star-spangled American supercar
Tragically, a fatal car crash happens every 13 minutes or so in the United States. Of course, each vehicle segment has one model that tops the list of deadly rides. You might expect a wayward, tail-happy muscle car like the Ford Mustang or a small sedan like the Nissan Versa to lead the car segment. However, the deadliest car in the country is none other than the Chevrolet Corvette.
A recent study gives the Chevrolet Corvette the top spot among the deadliest car models in the country
In typical Chevrolet Corvette fashion, the eighth-generation Stingray, Z06, and E-Ray offer supercar performance at premium sports car price points. As such, GM sold nearly 54,000 Corvettes last year. That’s twice as many cars as Ferrari sold from 2015 to 2022. In one year. However, the commonplace has another claim to fame: it’s the deadliest car in the country.
According to an iSeeCars study, the Corvette had a fatal accident rate of 13.6 per billion vehicle miles. As a result, the Kentucky sports car-turned-supercar is the second deadliest vehicle on American roads, just behind the Hyundai Venue compact SUV. The Corvette’s 13.6 matches that of the Mitsubishi Mirage. And the two couldn’t be more dissimilar.
| Make and model (cars) | Fatal accident rate (per billion miles) |
| Chevrolet Corvette | 13.6 |
| Mitsubishi Mirage | 13.6 |
| Porsche 911 | 13.2 |
| Mitsubishi Mirage G4 | 10.1 |
| Kia Forte | 8.1 |
| Overall average (all segments) | 2.8 |
On the one hand, the standard Chevrolet Corvette Stingray is a midengine, 490-horsepower performance staple. On the other, the Mitsubishi Mirage is the most anemic mass-production car in 2024, producing just 78 horsepower from its 1.2L three-cylinder engine. However, both cars have a fatal accident rate of 13.6, 0.4 more than the immortal Porsche 911 and 3.5 more than the G4 sedan variant of the Mirage.
So how is it possible? Well, an iSeeCars executive analyst says it’s driver behavior above all else. Understandable, given the Corvette’s ballistic performance and appetite for instigation. However, it’s also the simple argument of big and heavy versus small and light. Smaller, lighter vehicles like the Corvette, 911, and Mirage simply can’t provide as much protection in a crash as a full-size pickup truck. Still, the way you drive has much more to do with survivability than what you drive.
