When buying a new vehicle, choices abound. Not just what make and model to buy, but also what features you want.

The average new vehicle today costs a whopping $50,000. But don’t blame safety, says David Harkey, president of the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. For half that amount, you can find a vehicle with state-of-the-art engineering to protect you and your family in the event of a crash, as well as proven technologies to keep you from crashing in the first place, he says.

The manufacturer’s suggested retail price for the base model of the 2026 Mazda 3 is only $24,550. A bit more can get you a 2026 Hyundai Kona, a small SUV. Prefer a Honda Accord, Toyota Camry or Subaru Forester? Each starts at less than $30,000.

“These aren’t bargain basement vehicles,” says Harkey. “All five earned the 2025 IIHS Top Safety Pick award, the highest accolade we give. All the base models provide the highest level of crash protection along with standard automatic emergency braking with pedestrian detection and standard lane departure warning and prevention.”

During a recent U.S. House subcommittee hearing on auto safety and innovation, vehicle affordability was a major theme, according to Harkey. Amid these discussions, some people have suggested that safety is too expensive. They want to abandon the development of lifesaving technologies and halt efforts to expand access to them. As the examples cited make clear, a safe car doesn’t have to cost a lot. Giving up on safety progress, on the other hand, will have very real costs — in terms of both dollars and lives.

In the 1950s, automakers, advocates and policymakers began to focus on how to make automobiles less dangerous for drivers and passengers. One of the first innovations was the seat belt, which is estimated to have saved more than 450,000 lives between 1968 and 2019, according to the IIHS.

As time went on, more lifesaving features were developed and, as they proved their effectiveness, were incorporated into federal safety standards to ensure they would be included on every new vehicle. These included frontal airbags, which had saved an estimated 70,000 lives by the end of 2019, and electronic stability control, which had saved an estimated 29,000. IIHS’s crash avoidance ratings as well as a voluntary industry commitment have led to the proliferation of automatic emergency braking — technology that cuts rates of front-to-rear crashes in half and rates of pedestrian crashes by a quarter.

None of these safety innovations are free. There are costs associated with the new components and with integrating them into vehicles. However, the benefits in terms of crashes prevented or mitigated and fatalities or injuries avoided far outweigh these costs.

Safety features aren’t the main thing pushing up prices. Buyers are paying more for convenience features such as hands-free power liftgates, puddle lights and automatically retracting mirrors. Size is also a major factor: Americans continue to gravitate toward larger vehicles. Even those who buy less expensive models often choose to load them with optional features that have nothing to do with safety.

Despite the remarkable progress made in vehicle safety, the U.S. lags behind other developed nations in reducing traffic fatalities; in recent years, road deaths have been trending the wrong way.

“Automakers should absolutely look for ways to cut costs for consumers but not at the expense of people’s lives,” Harkey advises.