New safety shake-up

By Julie Sinclair

24th February 2009

What's the point of a test if everyone gets top marks? It’s meaningless. Like every student leaving school with straight ‘A’s. Or all cars achieving the highest score in crash tests.

It makes any selection process pretty pointless, too. Motorists struggle to pick the safest car on the road, as so many have been awarded the maximum five stars by Euro NCAP, the organisation responsible for crash tests in Europe.

But that’s all about to change, as the test just got tougher. Last week, Euro NCAP launched the biggest revamp of its scoring system in more than a decade. And we headed out to its HQ in Brussels, Belgium, to see the results. Until now, cars were confusingly given three safety scores – one for how well protected adult occupants are, another for children and a third for pedestrians unlucky enough to collide with the vehicle in a crash.

It’s the marks models scored in this final category that tended to fall short. But frustratingly, only the typically high-scoring Adult Occupant Protection rating was ever published. The biggest change now is that these scores have been combined to give one single star rating. So, poor performance in one section will affect the car’s overall mark.

The combined score will still be more heavily weighted towards adult occupant protection to begin with. But Euro NCAP says a new fourth category – called Safety Assist – will be given increasing importance as time goes on.

This section rewards makers which include standard kit such as Electronic Stability Control (ESC). In fact, Euro NCAP has stated that if a manufacturer doesn’t offer ESC as standard on 85 per cent of the model variants sold, “it will
be impossible to get five stars”. The availability of speed limiters is also taken into account, as is the whiplash protection offered by the car’s headrests.

So, with this strict new criteria in mind, why have the first six crash-tested models performed so well (see table, opposite)? Part of the problem is that these changes have been planned for years – long enough for makers to have upped the safety ante to ensure their cars still score highly. Take Mitsubishi’s Lancer. Programme manager Aled Williams says the firm was warned the Lancer was in the first round of revised tests, and that it would be impossible for it to get five stars as it stood.

The Japanese firm’s response? “It had to make a quick decision, and that was to offer ESC on all models immediately,” Aled explains. So it got five stars after all.

At first glance, these deals seem to give makers an unfair advantage. After all, what kind of test is it if you’re told how to pass it? But Euro NCAP secretary general Michiel van Ratingen says: “We are not interested in having one-star cars. There will always be some makers which don’t want to invest. Our goal is to keep raising the bar for safety, and hope the industry will strive to meet it.”

That’s why Euro NCAP has not finished with its red marker pen. Auto Express revealed that fatter crash test dummies were on the cards back in Issue 975 to reflect rising obesity levels in the UK. This is only one of the changes we can expect, according to van Ratingen. “The current dummy range was developed in the Seventies,” he explains. “They’re basic, and feel stiff if you pick them up. There’s a new, more life-like family of dummies. In a couple of years we’ll have more sizes, including older children and adults, and small females.

“This last category is crucial, as smaller women are more vulnerable in a crash. They are more likely to sit close to the steering wheel,” he tells us.

High-speed crashes aren’t likely to be added, though. “The idea that this makes the assessment stricter is a myth,” says van Ratingen. “Most accidents occur at lower speeds, with people who are elderly.” What the current tests don’t measure is compatibility – the impact of an SUV, say, hitting a city car. Instead, all vehicles are crashed into stationary barriers. Yet there are plans to change this, too. “It’s in the pipeline,” van Ratingen admits, “but it’s a tricky area. We need to develop more progressive barrier fronts. And there are regulatory issues. Ultimately, we have to focus on features which manufacturers can actually improve.”

Computer modelling will take crash testing technology to the next level. But funding is a concern. Most of this work is being done in-house, by the makers themselves, and van Ratingen says it’s top secret. “They’re not going to simply hand this data over to us,” he explains. “The accident model of the car alone is worth around 100,000 Euros. They may end up doing the testing, while we carry out checks to ensure the car behaves the way they say it does.” And that, no doubt, really will spell the end of low scores.

How cars scored under revamped regulations

Model / Adult occupant protection / Child occupant protection / Pedestrian protoccupant ection / Safety assist score / Overall star rating

Maximum score: 36 / 49 / 36 / 7 / 5/5

Citroen C3 Picasso: 29 / 37 / 16 / 3 / 4/5
Mazda 6: 28 / 40 / 18 / 5 / 5/5
Mitsubishi Lancer: 29 / 39 / 12 / 5 / 5/5
Subaru Impreza: 30 / 36 / 26 / 4 / 4/5
Toyota Avensis: 32 / 42 / 19 / 6 / 5/5
Toyota iQ: 33 / 35 / 19 / 6 / 5/5

(Source: Euro NCAP)