The Best Family Cars for Child Safety

The Mercedes CLA is a cool-looking saloon car which has a heavy dose of coupe inspiration in its design. Formed to recreate the look and feel of a two-door car but with the added practicality of additional doors, the CLA is a slightly quirky choice but a very safe one thanks to sparkling Euro NCAP scores from when it was crash tested in 2019. In fact, it scored a full five stars overall and even returned a 96 per cent score for adult occupant protection, alongside 91 per cent for child protection.

The CLA is also equipped with a vast array of safety assistance systems, such as an active bonnet – which can cushion a pedestrian in the event of an impact – and various autonomous emergency braking features.

Subaru might be one of the smaller car companies in the UK presence-wise, but it has a great reputation when it comes to safety. Take its latest Forester, for instance, which when scored by Euro NCAP back in 2019 returned a full five-star rating overall. It’s down to great testing scores for adult and child occupant safety – with 97 and 91 per cent respectively – alongside the Forester’s 80 per cent score for safety with vulnerable road users.

There’s an impressive number of airbags on board, too, including side-impact ones for pelvis and side chest protection. You’ll find ISOFIX points at the rear, too, and you can deactivate the front airbag if you do need to position a child seat in the front chair.

When it was tested at launch in 2018, the Hyundai Santa Fe did remarkably well. In fact, it too scored a full five stars after Euro NCAP put it through its rigorous testing procedures, while scores of 94 and 88 per cent for adult and child occupant safety respectively mean that the Santa Fe is still a very safe model to choose.

As a large SUV, the Santa Fe will be a little more costly to run overall, but it does get plenty of safety technology included as standard. Highlights such as autonomous emergency braking for pedestrians and full lane keep assistance help to boost the Santa Fe’s overall safety levels further, too. Plus, you’re getting seven-seater versatility which makes the Santa Fe great for larger families.

Electric vehicles are also a very good bet when it comes to safety. Take the Jaguar I-Pace, for example. As one of the first mass-market electric vehicles it’s a common sight on the used market, but when it was launched – and crash-tested – back in 2018, it made a real name for itself in terms of safety. With a five-star rating it did just as well as others here in Euro NCAP’s tests, and it performed well elsewhere with 91 and 81 per cent respectively for adult and child safety.

It has a good number of safety assistance systems, too, and a plethora of airbags to help keep things as safe as can be. Just remember, of course, that you’ll need to have somewhere to charge the I-Pace – so think about where you might be able to have a charge point installed or if there’s public charging provision nearby.

Mazda has always set a good standard for safety in its cars and you’ll find that present and correct in the very popular 6. It’s a good model in terms of value, too, and used examples are readily available for all manner of budgets. The 6 is also a sublime long-distance cruiser and you can even get it as an estate if you want a more practical option.

The Mazda 6 was one of the top-rated cars safety-wise in Euro NCAP’s 2018 round of testing, returning – of course – the full five stars. A near-perfect adult occupant safety score of 95 per cent is impressive, too, as is the child occupant safety score of 91 per cent. It has plenty of on-board safety technology, too, including speed assistance and plenty of autonomous emergency braking functions.

If there’s a car company which knows a thing or two about safety, it’s Volvo. An innovator in the car safety game – Volvo was one of the first carmakers to install side-impact airbags – it remains a company which focuses on protecting occupants and other road users. The XC40 has proven immensely popular as Volvo’s most compact SUV and with its boxy dimensions, it’s a car which packs a whole lot of space into a reasonably compact space. There are good materials, too, and the main infotainment is clear and easy to use.

Tested in 2018 the XC40 scored a five-star rating in Euro NCAP’s safety tests and returned respective scores of 97 and 87 per cent for adult and child occupant safety. You’ll also find a suite of assistance systems alongside full ISOFIX fixings for the rear seats.

Peugeot has always offered up a certain level of quirkiness in its cars and you’ll find that in the 508, too. It’s a sleek, comfortable cruiser which feels very much at home on the motorway, yet decent handling means that the 508 can make twisty routes quite enjoyable too. There’s a more practical SW – or estate – version if you need some extra boot space, too.

When it comes to safety, the 508 does well too. A five-star rating is par for the course, here, while scores of 96 and 87 per cent for adult and child occupant safety respectively are decent too. An ISOFIX point for the front seat – alongside the standard rear-seat mounting points – was available as an optional extra, too, so look out for this on used examples.

We’re big fans of the Citroen Berlingo as a family vehicle. As a dedicated MPV it has acres of space to offer while good boot room means that it could be an ideal choice for adventurous families who need plenty of practicality. However, the Berlingo’s practicality does come slightly at the expense of overall safety, as it just missed out on a full five stars when tested by Euro NCAP back in 2018.

However, it’s still a very secure option thanks to a full set of assistance systems and testers praised the Berlingo’s ability to protect its occupants in a variety of situations and even mentioned that the car’s Autonomous Emergency Braking (AEB) ‘performed well in tests of its functionality at the low speeds’.

We’ve got another electric model to consider if you’re after a safety-focused model – the Mercedes EQC. It was the car which really kicked off Mercedes’ electric revolution, incorporating plenty of premium features that you’d expect from the brand alongside a clean-running electric powertrain that could prove very inexpensive to run if you take advantage of cheap home charging energy rates.

It’s great on the safety front, too, Coming high up the list of cars tested during 2019, the EQC – naturally – scored a full five stars in Euro NCAP’s process and scored an impressive 90 per cent for child occupant safety and 96 per cent for adult occupant safety. The EQC also scored ‘maximum points’ for side-impact safety, too, and gained praise for its protection in numerous types of collisions.

If you’re after a car which is an extremely common sight on the used market, then you’ll want the Ford Focus. The most recent example – which was tested in 2019 – scored a full five stars too, so there’s no downside to this car safety-wise despite its immense popularity. In fact, it matches many other far more expensive – and larger – models for overall safety and even does well when it comes to assistance systems, where it scored 75 per cent.

Euro NCAP testers also noted that a ‘similar level of protection would be provided to occupants of different sizes and to those sitting in different positions’, so you can be safe in the knowledge that passengers of all types can be kept safe and secure in the Focus.