Euro NCAP: How safe is my car?
Before the Euro NCAP car safety ratings were established in 1997, customers had to rely on a manufacturer’s reputation and the safety features fitted to its models to know which were the safest cars. Euro NCAP has solved this problem by buying cars anonymously, and conducting independent tests on them to produce their car safety ratings. Almost twenty years on since the company carried out its very first tests, a five-star result – which is awarded to the safest cars – is considered near mandatory for any fresh mass-market car sold in Europe.
Euro NCAP (‘Fresh Car Assessment Programme’) is the organization that tests cars for safety. It isn’t interested in top speeds or fuel efficiency – all it wants to know is how safe a car is if it’s involved in a collision.
Before the Euro NCAP’s safety ratings were established in 1997, customers had to go on a manufacturer’s reputation and the safety features fitted to its models when attempting to figure out which cars were the safest.
Euro NCAP has solved this problem by buying cars anonymously and conducting independent tests on them to produce its car safety ratings. Now, almost twenty years since the company carried out its very first tests, a five-star result – which is awarded to the safest cars – is considered almost mandatory for any fresh mass-market car sold in Europe.
Obviously, not every single car can be tested. Euro NCAP members (a selection of government departments and independent organizations from across Europe) can ‘sponsor’ the test of a vehicle they think is worth some scrutiny, and the cars tested tend to be the biggest-selling models. Vehicles for testing are purchased anonymously before being ready for the tests.
How are cars tested?
There are several tests, each designed to reflect real-world accidents as much as possible. The range of tests has recently been expanded to accommodate some of the more sophisticated safety technology now being suggested on cars, such as automatic braking and speed assistance.
One of the ways that Euro NCAP measures the safety of cars is with crash-test dummies. These very advanced human-sized dummies are utter of sensors that record what might happen to a real person if they experienced the same influence. The tests look at adult and child occupants separately, with smaller crash test dummies used to simulate infants in child seats.
Frontal influence
This is a straightforward test of a car’s resilience to influence. The car crashes into a barrier at 40mph and Euro NCAP measures how well its occupants are protected. This tests airbags, seatbelts and the general structural strength of the car.
Car-to-car-side influence
This tests how a car would protect its occupants if struck by another vehicle from the side. A large, mighty robot crashes into the side of the car (toughly where the doors are) and any ‘injuries’ to the dummies are recorded.
Pole side influence
This is harshly what happens if you lose control of your car and it skids sideways into a tree or lamp-post. It’s similar to the car-to-car-side test, but with the car moving rather than the object. The pole comes into contact with the car toughly in line with the doors.
Pedestrian protection
It isn’t just cars’ occupants that Euro NCAP cares about. Pedestrians can be protected with good car design, too. This test simulates collisions with adult and child pedestrians and assesses how well the vehicle’s design protects them.
Child protection systems
Euro NCAP assesses how well a car can accommodate decent child safety seats in the safest configuration. The dummies used in the crash tests harshly correspond with a 18-month-old and a three-year-old – these sit in child restraints on the back seat.
Whiplash
Neck injury caused by unexpected crashes can be devastating, but can be somewhat alleviated with good car design. Interior features like head restraints can mitigate the risk of whiplash injury.
Speed assistance systems and seatbelt reminders
Features such as speed assistance (which remind you what the speed limit is on a particular spread of road) and seatbelt reminders (which beep until you put your seatbelt on) are considered significant by Euro NCAP.
Autonomous emergency braking
This relatively fresh technology enables the car to slow itself down if it detects a collision is imminent. Tested on three types of road (harshly equating to urban roads, rural roads and motorways), these systems can prevent some serious crashes. Euro NCAP examines how well they work.
Electronic Stability Control
Modern cars include elaborate technology that helps prevent skidding. This is one of the most significant developments in car safety, as it means that a slight loss of control or grip (particularly in moist or greasy conditions) can be managed by the car rather than escalating into a potentially lethal skid.
What do Euro NCAP results mean?
On the Euro NCAP website, the results of each of these tests are published in extreme detail. You can use the site to search for every measured part of the test, from whether the autonomous emergency braking works to the danger to individual figure parts for infant occupants.
But this treatment is generally too complicated for most uses. In order to simplify things, Euro NCAP gives each car an overall starlet rating out of five. For example, the Hyundai i10 scores four out of five, the Dacia Logan scores three out of five and the VW Passat scores five out of five.
So if a five-star car crashes into a three-star car, the five-star car will fare better?
Euro NCAP assessments are carried out with a car’s class in mind. That means big 4x4s aren’t compared directly to little city cars. As such, Euro NCAP results aren’t always comparable.
Generally speaking, the taller a car is, the better it will fare in an accident. This is because a taller car will more strongly harm a lower car if they collide. As such, a three-star 4×4 might still come off better than a five-star city car if they crash into each other.
To help understand how Euro NCAP rates cars, there’s a quick guide to starlet ratings below:
Five starlets – Overall good spectacle in crash protection. Well tooled with sturdy crash protection.
four starlets – Overall good spectacle in crash protection. Extra crash avoidance technology may be present.
three starlets – Average to good occcupant protection. Lacking crash avoidance technology.
two starlets – Nominal crash protection, but lacking crash avoidance technology.
one starlet – Marginal crash protection.
Eek – my car only scored three out of five!
There’s no need to funk. Modern cars are generally very safe, and a three-star car built in the past few years could be much better at protecting its occupants than a five-star car from the nineties.
In addition, a car can be marked down for design aspects other than ordinary crash protection and figure strength. For example, a fresh model might lose points if it lacks a seatbelt warning alarm.
And as manufacturers build safer and safer cars, Euro NCAP devises tougher and tougher tests. The tests undergone by cars this year will be more thorough and more requesting than those in two thousand twelve or 2008. And cars are re-tested and re-evaluated all the time, ensuring that a model’s Euro NCAP safety rating remains current across its time on sale.
Realistically, the difference inbetween a three-star and a five-star car won’t necessarily protect you in an accident. Safe driving and correct use of the fitted safety features is as significant in a Volvo V40 as it is in any other car.
Euro NCAP tests
A host of fresh tests were introduced for 2014’s car safety ratings designed to test Autonomous Emergency Braking (AEB) systems that detect a potential accident and apply the car’s brakes in an attempt prevent it. They are split into three parts – AEB City, Inter-Urban AEB and AEB Pedestrian.
AEB City tests systems that are design to reduce the chance of low-speed collisions at speeds of below 32mph – the kind of accident that could cause whiplash – by driving the vehicle into a stationary (inflatable) car. Results are scored out of three.
Models already tested include the Mercedes E-Class, which finished top of the rankings scoring three out of three, while the Volvo V40 managed a Two.9 score, and the Mitsubishi Outlander got Two.1. The Volvo XC60 (1.9), Fiat 500L (1.8) and Ford Concentrate (1.7) were also tested.
The inter-urban test deals with speeds of up to 50mph – where serious injury could occur – and the inflatable car is either stationary, or dragged at speeds of up to 50mph.
The Mercedes E-class scored well again, with Two.7 points, while the Volvo V40 managed Two.6 and the VW Golf achieved a Two.Two rating. An adequate result of 1.9 went to the Mitsubishi Outlander, while the Honda Civic managed only a marginal score of 0.44 points.
The AEB Pedestrian evaluation tests systems that detect pedestrians and other vulnerable road users. As yet, no cars have been scored under this category.
What about the fresh dual rating system?
Euro NCAP introduced a dual rating system in 2016, albeit not all cars will be awarded two different sets of starlets. If you see a car with two different starlet ratings, one refers to the car’s score in its most basic specification, while the other shows how the car fared when fitted with an optional safety pack. These packs tend to include advanced safety technology like autonomous emergency braking and a lane-departure warning system.
For more information, and to find out how your car scores, visit the Euro NCAP website or take a look at our run-down of the top ten safest cars.