What is the safest sedan for women? Is there really a difference in vehicle safety for women and men? Yes, because biologically, women and men are different. We discuss these differences in our blog Why Women Need More Protection in Cars. In a nutshell, car safety has been designed with the young male body in mind. This puts women at a disadvantage because they are less protected in a crash than a man. Consequently, women need to be more selective in picking the car that best protects them.

The scientists at The Auto Professor took all this into account when we created the safety rating system called Auto Grades. Our mission is to find the car that provides you with the best protection in a crash, based on the track record from past crashes.

Using actual fatal crash data, we looked at the driver fatality rates of vehicles by the characteristics of the driver. We grade the safety of the vehicle by how well it protected women versus men and older versus younger drivers. You, as the driver, can use the Auto Grade search engine to find our safety rating for nearly any vehicle. One you own or one you are thinking about buying.

Safest Sedans for Female Drivers

To make your search more convenient, we compiled the following table of our top picks for female drivers of popular midsize sedan. In other words, we had lots of data for these popular vehicles and across all age groups. As it turns out, no midsize sedan earned an A or A- for female drivers over 50 years old.

We do not recommend that a woman over 50 drive a sedan. No popular sedan had a superior track record of protecting an older women in a crash.

For the younger female driver, the following table lists sedans that earned an A or A- for women between the ages of 31 and 50.

Popular Sedans Model Years 2018-2023 with Auto Grades A or A- for Female Drivers Under 50 Years Old

• BMW 3-Series & 4-Series (Women ages 31-50)
• Chrysler 300 (Women ages 31-50)
• Hyundai Sonata (Women ages 16-22)
• Lexus IS
• Mercedes C Class
• Nissan Maxima
• Subaru Legacy
• Volkswagen Passat (Model Years 2018-2019)

The following list shows less popular sedans that earned an A or A- Auto Grade Overall.

Less Popular Sedans Model Years 2018-20223 with Auto Grades A or A- Overall

As we mentioned above, no popular sedan earned an A or A- for older women drivers. However, some less popular sedans, for which we did not have sufficient data to create Auto Grades for the older female drivers, did earn an A or A- overall. If an older woman desperately wanted a sedan, then here is a list of possible candidates.

• Acura TLX
• BMW 5-Series
• Mercedes E Class and S Class
• Volvo S60, V60, V60 Cross Country