New Cars Have The Latest Safety Features Fitted That Save Lives

Thursday, 24. September 2009

One of the huge benefits to buying or leasing a new car is that you will be driving a car with all the latest safety equipment fitted. Even the most modest cars have more equipment than they had fitted even just 3 years ago. The most significant for me is the wider fitting of Electronic Stability Control (ESC) also known as ESP. This system has been proven to save more lives than ABS but isn’t mandatory until 2012. Many of the changes that have come about have been as a result of testing carried out by Euro NCAP who rate every car. Vehicles are rigorously tested to destruction using dummies that cost in the region of £150,000 each and other than the fact that they don’t breathe have all the characteristics of a human body with sensors everywhere in order to assess the effects of a crash. The laboratory will call off a crash test if the temperature of the dummy drifts plus or minus 3 degrees, that’s how precise the tests are. And if you think that the tests can be rigged by manufacturers aiming to achieve the 5 star rating it has been pointed out that Euro NCAP will go to the docks and select cars at random for testing. That could be a bit tough if it happens to be a car you have had on order for 3 months! I was amazed to read that the NCAP crash testing only started in 1997 but after thousands of crashes studied, both in the laboratory and at crash scenes, they have helped to save many lives. As they pointed out, the importance of NCAP in car design is so high now that if cars were only built to the legal minimum standards most cars would struggle to achieve a rating of one star. As for the tests themselves they include:

Frontal Impact: simulating an accident at 40mph

Side Impact: simulating the second most common collision, hence the importance of side air bags, based on an impact of 30mph

Pole Test: simulating hitting a tree or lamppost at 18mph

Child Protection: tests the protection offered by seats to children of 18 months and 3 years

Pedestrian Protection: simulates a 25mph collision between the vehicle and adult and child dummies

Whiplash: this is a new test aimed at testing the seats which are tested on their own outside the car and the effect on the neck and spine

Equipment: the vehicle is assessed based on the safety equipment fitted with known safety benefits such as ESC, seatbelt reminders, speed limiters etc.

For more information and a list of all current manufactured cars with their Euro NCAP safety rating visit the What Car website www.whatcar.com By Graham Hill