Airbags, stability control, crash-test ratings — we find out who makes the safest cars on the road today

Safety may not be the most glamorous consideration when shopping for a new car, but it's not smart to not consider it at all. We've used a few sources to compile our recommendations for safe choices for 2012, but we didn't relax our requirements for good value, good performance, and general desirability above and beyond the airbags.

We checked out ratings from two agencies run by our American cousins: the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS), which releases a list each year of Top Safety Picks and results of crashworthiness testing in the following categories: frontal impact, side impact, rollover and rear-impact, including ratings for available seats, since the head restraints are a big part of rear-impact safety. Their system awards good, acceptable, marginal or poor ratings in each category. IIHS results weight frontal impact results most highly, followed by side impact.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) uses a five-star system to grade vehicles overall and in the categories of frontal crash, side crash and rollover. It also advises whether its trifecta of recommended active safety technologies are standard: electronic stability control, forward collision warning system and lane departure warning system.

We also looked at the safety features highly rated vehicles offer and for what price. Then we whipped together this nifty list of guidelines and recommended vehicles. You're welcome.

It all makes me think back fondly to the days when my brother and I ricocheted around freestyle in the rear of my parents' station wagon all the way down I95 to Florida, with no seatbelts, no airbags, and my mother's constant cigarette smoke wafting past. It's amazing any of us lived to adulthood.