The 2005 Saab 9-3 is one of the safest and least expensive vehicles for teen drivers, according to IIHS.

The fact that teen drivers die at significantly higher rates than other age groups isn’t a surprise to most; however, one of the reasons may be a bit of a revelation: old cars.

It’s often assumed that teenage fatalities involving vehicles – the top reason for teenage fatalities, according to the Centers for Disease Control, is car crashes – can be attributable to a dangerous combination of poor driving habits and a lack of experience behind the wheel.

However, teenagers also typically drive older vehicles that often lack the safety technologies that could offset some of their inexperience. It’s when that decade-old car or truck gets added to the mix that dangerous can become deadly.

Nearly half of drivers between 15 and 17 years old who died in accidents between 2008 and 2012 were driving vehicles that were at least 11 years old and a third of those were driving small cars.

The study, which was written by two Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) researchers, used the government’s Fatality Analysis Reporting System data from 2008 to 2012 to produce the report.

The fact that teenagers drive older cars, which are often smaller, isn’t a stunner. Parents are generally looking for cars that are very affordable because they believe that teens would dent, ding and otherwise ruin a nice car so they might as well put them behind the wheel of a vehicle where that won’t be as much of an issue.

The researchers cite a survey of parents in May 2014 that found some 60% of teenagers drive cars at least eight years old. In the FARS analysis, 82% of teens killed in wrecks drove cars that were at least six years old.

(Government lost $9.26 billion saving auto industry. For more, Click Here.)

Therein lies the conundrum: do you want your son or daughter to ruin a $15,000 car or a $2,000 car. In most cases, parents gravitate toward the latter option. However, older cars tend to have worse crashworthiness and fewer safety features like side airbags and electronic stability control. For example: just 3% of teen drivers’ cars have electronic stability control while side airbags came standard in 12% of teens’ cars.

(Click Here for details about 2014: The Year of the Recall.)

Just as importantly, those numbers are unlikely to change much for at least another decade. IIHS said in 2012 that 91% of cars had standard electronic stability systems by the 2010 model year, up from less than 30% in 2005. But just 15% of all registered cars on the road had standard stability systems in 2010.

(To see more about Fiat Chrysler’s recall of 67,000 pickups, Click Here.)

IIHS estimates it takes about 30 years from the time a safety feature is introduced until it shows up in 95% of cars and trucks.

ESC and side airbags weren’t introduced until 1995 on the most expensive models and later on more basic transportation. That said, IIHS does have a list of vehicles for less than $6,000 that it rated as “Good Choices” for teenagers.

They include:

• Hyundai Azera (2006 model year and later)
• Volkswagen Passat (2006-2008)
• Saab 9-3 (2005 and later)
• Suzuki Grand Vitara (2006 and later)
• Kia Sedona (2006 and later)

Vehicles on this list earn good ratings in the IIHS moderate overlap front test and good or acceptable ratings in the side test. If rated by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, they earn four or five stars overall or four or five stars in the front and side tests under the old rating scheme. They also have standard ESC and a better-than-poor rating for head restraints and seats.

If these vehicles are out of reach, financially, IIHS recommends large cars over small cars. They protect better in a crash, and analyses of insurance data show that teen drivers are less likely to crash them in the first place, the group said.