“A vehicle’s size, weight, and height certainly play a part in its ability to protect passengers in a crash. But the biggest contributor to occupant safety is avoiding a crash, and the biggest factor in crash avoidance is driver behavior. A focused, alert driver, traveling at a legal or prudent speed, without being under the influence of drugs or alcohol, is the most likely to arrive safely regardless of the vehicle they’re driving.”
In other words, they’re driven by douchebags and douchebags aren’t safe drivers. That said, that doesn’t explain why Kia is second.
I also fear that these numbers will be used by the usual people to say “electric cars have higher death rates” in the same way they used Tesla’s flagging sales numbers as a cudgel to beat the electric car market with.
I’m reminded of the 1980ies and what was then called “The Quattro Effect”. The short version is that the Audi Quattro had the highest insurance premiums of all contemporary cars due to an unprorortionally high number of crashes - because some men with more money than sense thought that buying the same car1) Walter Röhrl drove professionally would automatically make them an exceptionally good driver as he was.2) Physics somewhat frowned upon them.
The KIAs however… iSeeCars used data from between 2017 and 2022. At that time KIA (and, to some extent, Hyundai)3) had a massive theft problem because it was ridiculously easy to override the anti theft protections. I could imagine that anyone stealing a car for a joyride or as a getaway car wouldn’t focus that much on defensive driving what for them would be a disposable vehicle. But that’s just wild stab in the dark.
1) The street legal version anyway.
2) To be fair, Audi’s marketing isn’t entirely without blame here. “Buy the car that won the Rallye Monte Carlo” and all that jazz.
3) Pretty much the same company.
A UK motoring journalist reviewed the latest updated Tesla Model 3.
His description of the indicators left the reader understanding why the car is unusable bordering on dangerous on UK roads. Rather than try to précis it, here’s the link, because the author describes it so well.
(But it’s behind The Sunday Times paywall - if anyone wants me to upload or DM them a scan of the article, I have one, but it’s a largish file.)
Basically, though - roundabouts. For US readers unfamiliar with these, our Highway Code says that one indicates left when on a roundabout and approaching the exit one will be leaving the roundabout on. This is not safely possible in a Tesla Model 3. Also an issue at angled junctions.
I could regale you with a story about being picked up by a US tow truck guy after a crash and his thoughtful reaction to the concept of roundabouts and the reason for the paucity of them in the USA - it was most revealing about US cultural attitudes. (A few of you may have read about it when I posted it at TOP many years ago.) But we do have rather a lot of roundabouts here in the UK. Lone Skum seems unaware of their use globally outside the USA, as the article makes clear.
It’s even worse than that. On the Continent, we have metric roundabouts.
You mean yours comply with 3.142 and ours are 22/7? 
Seriously, though, it may raise another issue. Which side of the steering wheel are these indicator buttons and does turning clockwise or anti-clockwise make them more or less accessible (= chaseable around the wheel as it is being turned) when trying to indicate mid-manoeuvre?
Was the fact that some places do not drive on the right ever any part of the design considerations when this daft design was settled upon? (I don’t know whether it makes any difference - perhaps it does not - but I bet any idea that it might need to be considered never entered their tiny little brains.)
Depends on where you live in the US. We have quite a few roundabouts in southeast Michigan. It’s obvious by their shite approach to such things that Ohio and Indiana have far fewer or possibly no roundabouts.
A couple Saturdays ago, I found one of these abominable 8-bit Priuses about 6" off my rear bumper while I was going about 75 MPH. Until it wasn’t - it passed 3 cars using the right hand lane and abruptly cut back into the left lane where there wasn’t actually enough room for it, causing the rest of us to slam on our brakes. A sample of one, sure, but that driver is a complete asshole.
It is to be most fervently hoped that that “driver” reaches complete Enlightenment. 
Bonus:
Oregon has been aggressively replacing 4-way stops (many drivers have no idea how they work) with roundabouts. Some people still don’t know how they work, but their mistakes tend toward safer errors; particularly coming to a complete stop at the entrance of an empty roundabout. 
But at least that’s safer than running a stop sign.
And assholes never indicate when approaching or exiting roundabouts, of course. So why would unusable indicators in a Tesla be a problem for them?
I can’t think of any roundabouts in the US large enough to warrant signaling. Two lanes tend to be the max. We also use a lot of channelization to reduce idiocy. Below is what used to be the most lethal intersection in my county. Since the roundabout was completed, crashes pretty much stopped. Only took two families of 4 dying in separate crashes only a couple months apart to get safety improvements here.
What does the size of the roundabout have to do with signalling? You indicate that you are about to leave the roundabout so that the person entering it in front of you knows it is safe to do so without having to stop unnecessarily and disrupting the flow. That applies to all sizes of roundabouts and assholes that don’t indicate exist everywhere, even in countries that have had them forever.
This is the basic tenet of roundabouts. Without signalling they don’t work, as anyone entering has to stop as if it were a normal intersection.
Thanks for posting that.
And typical two-lane roundabouts especially need signalling while on the roundabout, as one will often be changing lanes while on the roundabout, to position oneself for the appropriate exit. (Hard to do while the steering wheel is turned and the buttons have moved, if in a Tesla.)
The above is not really a typical roundabout. It could be an intersection where traffic is segregated, but in this case it is not, just ‘channeled’. It is more of a T-junction turned into such an intersection. There are only two exits so anyone approaching it from a any direction simply needs to get in and stay in one or other lanes and yield if traffic is coming from the left. No signalling required as each lane only goes to one exit.
Typical roundabouts replace 4-way (or 5-way or 6-way) intersections that would otherwise have to be entirely segregated or have traffic lights. Many traffic lights remain in UK simply because there is not room for a roundabout. And we even have traffic lights on large roundabouts to smooth the flow of traffic from all directions where traffic to/from one direction would otherwise risk preventing others on other entrances to the roundabout ever getting on to it. And some roundabouts have 3 or 4 lanes on them, increasing the need for clear signalling. (in some respects they are more like spirals, in that the lane markings are such that they have that effect in guiding traffic around them.)
The only ‘in practice’ element of the diagram linked to above that is not shown is that the green car in many cases can be in the right hand lane approaching the roundabout and go straight on, where the exit has two lanes. This is very common. We have roundabouts where this is the case and the exit merges immediately into one lane, as well.
And now I fear we may descend into a roundabout rabbit-hole!
I seem to recall a long-ago thread in the same vein at TOP.
ETA I found my post in the lengthier thread at TOP re roundabouts and how they are used:
For small roundabouts, you would need to signal before you entered to effectively communicate where you are exiting, and there are enough people who mistakenly signal to ENTER the roundabout that it would trigger drivers to enter when the signaler intends to continue around. It’s safer here to assume that a vehicle in the roundabout will continue rather than exit.
That’s not how our multilane roundabouts are constructed. You select your exit point by the lane you enter in. Rightmost lane for early exit, leftmost lane for late exit. These aren’t the large roundabouts you have in the UK. Most US roundabouts fit in the same space as a regular intersection.
If you are changing lanes within the roundabout, you’re doing it wrong.
That defeats the entire purpose of a roundabout. If everyone stops, just build an intersection.
I have never had that problem. If someone indicates before entering, it always means they intend to leave at the next exit
That assumes a constant flow of traffic at each entrance. That is rarely the case for US roundabouts. Even the ones that do have constant traffic are often structured such that drivers taking the first exit have a protected turn and can just go as long traffic on the destination road isn’t backed up. That at least somewhat improves flow relative to a standard intersection.