It's no secret that today's cars are getting safer, and fortunately that's also true for compacts and subcompacts, as AOL Autos reports—just in time for the country's renewed interest in smaller, more efficient vehicles that are easier on the environment.

The report said that according to the most recent available data released by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS), the death rate in the smallest cars on the road has dropped to 106 per million registered vehicles, a significant drop from the 165 per million in 1996. Plus, 14 of the 17 top-selling cars the IIHS tested received "Good" ratings in frontal offset collisions, up from exactly zero ten years ago.

"That's obviously a huge improvement," said Adrian Lund, IIHS president, in the article. "Small cars are indeed much safer now than they were just a decade ago." The laws of physics still apply; a larger vehicle tends to do better in a collision with a smaller vehicle. But many advances in smaller car design, not to mention safety improvements on larger vehicles with exactly these kinds of accidents in mind, are contributing to a much safer environment for today's economy car buyer than before.