I'm looking for a safe car for my teenage son. What are the safest and most dangerous cars?

That's a great question for any car buyer, especially when purchasing for a teenager.

Teens are expensive to insure because their accident risk is relatively high. According to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS), the crash rate per mile driven is four times higher for 16- to 19-year-olds than for older drivers. It's worst for first-year drivers; in fact, sixteen-year-olds have a crash rate per mile that is twice as high as that of 18- and 19-year-olds.

Vehicle recommendations for teenage drivers

Experts generally recommend mid-size cars with the latest safety features for teens, and advise against high-performance cars that might encourage speeding. Besides protecting your teen, a vehicle with a favorable safety record can help keep car insurance rates down.

[Let Insure.com help you find affordable car insurance now.]

A solid resource for safety information is the IIHS, which puts vehicles through rigorous tests and awards the best performers with its "Top Safety Pick" award. To qualify for the award, a vehicle must earn good ratings in safety tests for front, side, rollover and rear crashes and must have available electronic stability control, which significantly reduces crash risk.

Generally larger, heavier vehicles tend to be safer than smaller cars because light vehicles have less structure to absorb the energy from collisions.

However, six of 13 small cars recently tested by the institute earned the Top Safety Pick award:

1. 2012 Ford Focus
2. 2012 Honda Civic
3. 2011 Hyundai Elantra
4. 2011 Lexus CT 200h hybrid
5. 2011 Nissan Juke
6. 2011 Toyota Prius hybrid.

Another measurement of safety is driver death rates by vehicle model in crashes. In a recent analysis, the institute looked at driver-only death rates for vehicle model years 2005 to 2008 in traffic accidents from 2006 through 2009.

The IIHS found an average death rate of 48 deaths per million registered vehicle year--a registered year is one vehicle registered for one year. Rates varied as much as zero for seven models to 143 for the Nissan 350Z sports car.

Minivans, overall, had the best record with an average 25 driver deaths per million registered vehicle years, followed by SUVs with 28 deaths. SUV safety has improved dramatically since redesigns and electronic stability control systems greatly reduced rollover danger. Next were pickups with a rate of 52 deaths followed by cars, which averaged 56. However, rates varied widely among models within each of these classes.

For details on specific models, research vehicle ratings on the IIHS website. For more, see Shopping for a 2011 car? Here are the top safety picks and 6 steps to buying the perfect car for your teen driver.