You are spot on. What's really interesting is when companies publish death rate numbers. In everything I've seen, most low-cost car models suffer on safety, generally due to lower cost construction, materials, or cheaper safety/avoidance systems. Volvo obviously has historically been the best at reducing mortality, Tesla is seeming to be beating them but I don't know how many of the numbers actually match reality, that's not clearly published. To better test this it's about time we added a sixth star, for sure. Left Turns across traffic are generally the highest danger factor, notably for motorcyclists. Many states in the US are replacing traffic lights with roundabouts and are removing two-lane passing zones.

Oh and SUVs are markedly LESS safe. They are more prone to rollover, less likely to avoid an accident, stop slower, and generally have less safe body structure.