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Check out the latest edition of the ANCAPStar. This edition contains the latest ANCAP safety ratings and news from the Australasian New Car Assessment Program.
ANCAP provides consumers with independent and transparent advice and information on the level of occupant and pedestrian protection provided by vehicles in the most common types of crashes. Our member organisations include the Australian and New Zealand automobile clubs, Australian Federal, State & Territory Governments, the New Zealand Government, the Victorian Transport Accident Commission, NRMA Insurance and the FIA Foundation (UK).
Meet all of our member organisations.
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Latest Media Releases.
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10 December 2012
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5 star safety leads the way this Christmas
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Car buyers have even more choice this festive season with ANCAP today releasing 5 star safety ratings for the Kia Sorento, Infiniti FX, Hyundai Santa Fe, Mitsubishi Outlander and Citroen DS4.
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14 November 2012
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Some 'world cars' not necessarily safe cars
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The latest crash test results released by Latin NCAP today reveal that the safety levels of some popular cars sold across Latin America are still 20 years behind the industrialised countries and below global standards.
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2012 ANCAP Safety Ratings.
Last year around 1600 people died on Australian and New Zealand roads. In order to reduce this unnecessary loss of life we must encourage manufacturers to build, and consumers to buy safer 5 star rated vehicles.
In 2012, ANCAP published safety ratings for 46 vehicles, of which 37 (80%) achieved a 5 star rating; eight (17%) achieved a 4 star rating and just one, the Mahindra Pik-Up, scored 3 stars. There were no 1 or 2 star rated vehicles tested in 2012.
Summarising these results, the 2012 ANCAP Safety Ratings booklet has been produced. This booklet features a simple, easy-to-read summary of vehicle safety results by category (small car, medium car, large car, sports car, people mover, compact SUV, medium SUV, large SUV and utility/van). Details such as the type of airbags fitted and inclusion of safety technologies including electronic stability control (ESC) and seat belt reminders is also listed.
The 2012 ANCAP Safety Ratings booklet can be downloaded from ancap.com.au/media. Hardcopies of the 2012 ANCAP Safety Ratings booklet are also available - in both DL and A5 formats - and can be obtained for commercial distribution at cost by contacting ancap@ancap.com.au.
The ANCAP safety ratings for more than 420 vehicles can be accessed online at ancap.com.au/crashtestresults.
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ANCAP Gets a New Look and Feel.
As Australasia’s leading vehicle safety advocate, ANCAP provides consumers with transparent advice on vehicle safety through its safety rating program.
ANCAP’s primary objective is to inform and educate the public about the level of protection provided by different vehicle models in the most common types of crashes. Raising awareness is what ANCAP is all about.
Considerable work has been done by ANCAP to raise the profile of vehicle safety amongst consumers through independent testing and the publication of ANCAP safety ratings. Supporting ANCAP's endeavours, it is encouraging to see the ready inclusion of ANCAP safety ratings across manufacturer advertising material and in many new car reviews.
To further highlight the importance of ANCAP safety ratings amongst consumers, the ANCAP logo has been subtly revised - incorporating a modernised typeface and stylised roundel icon. The word 'Safety' also now features alongside the corresponding number of stars, as opposed to the word 'Rated' which featured previously.
The suite of revised ANCAP logos and accompanying ANCAP Corporate Design Guidelines are now available and can be obtained by contacting ancap@ancap.com.au. Questions regarding use and application of ANCAP logos should be directed to ANCAP Communications Manager, Rhianne Robson.
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Catherine King Witnesses Live Crash Test.
Parliamentary Secretary for Infrastructure and Transport, The Hon. Catherine King MP, joined the ANCAP Board on 5 December 2012 to witness a live crash test.
Ms King was provided with a tour of the Crashlab testing laboratory and watched as lab technicians prepared the test vehicle - a 2013 Subaru Forester - for its journey down the test runway.
Following the frontal offset test, Ms King remarked on the ferocity of the impact and encouraged consumers to "make safety a key consideration in their vehicle purchasing decision."
ANCAP Chairman, Mr Lauchlan McIntosh AM said, "The Australian Government has been an active supporter of ANCAP, contributing to our test program since 2010. This has allowed ANCAP to test more cars and provide consumers with an informed choice on which cars are the safest."
The Australian Government set an example for the Australian community in 2011 by requiring all of the passenger vehicles in its fleet to have a 5 star ANCAP safety rating. As a result, many state and local governments have followed suit, as has big business. These supporting influences will contribute to a reduction in the loss of life on our roads.
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Notice a Difference?
ANCAP is now making it easier for consumers to review and compare vehicle safety ratings, safety features and safety technologies with the introduction of a new, more streamlined design for ANCAP vehicle safety rating reports. These technical reports, known as 'datasheets' now present a summary of key vehicle safety details in table form at the beginning of the document with more detailed test analysis broken down under individual test headings.
A more comprehensive list of safety assist technologies (SAT) also forms part of the new datasheet layout as 2013 sees the number of SAT required by vehicles increase.
Consumers can also check at a glance to which model variants a particular ANCAP safety rating applies with "Variant Applicability" now listed front-and-centre within the new datasheet. An increasing number of variants within a model range are being awarded with an ANCAP safety rating following the introduction of the ANCAP Variants Policy in 2011.
ANCAP datasheets are available for every ANCAP safety rating issued and can be accessed by clicking the "Download Full Report" link found on each of the individual vehicle crash test results pages of the ANCAP website.
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ASEAN NCAP: Phase I Results Released.
Last week ANCAP's newest sister program, ASEAN NCAP, revealed results of its first phase of crash testing which revealed a spread of safety ratings.
Seven models sold across the ASEAN region were tested in the first phase with results ranging from 1 star through to 5 stars:
Ford Fiesta - 5 stars
Honda City - 5 stars
Toyota Vios - 4 stars
Nissan March - 4 stars
Perodua MyVi - 3 stars
Proton Saga - 3 stars (dual airbags)
Hyundai i10 - 2 stars
Proton Saga - 1 star (single airbag)
The Global NCAP family was expanded last year with the establishment of ASEAN NCAP to elevate vehicle safety standards, raise consumer awareness and thus encourage a market for safer vehicles in the Southeast Asian region.
"ANCAP and other established NCAPs such as Euro NCAP and Latin NCAP have provided ongoing support and guidance to the Malaysian-based program over the past two years and it is satisfying to see this pay off with the release of the first round of ASEAN NCAP results," said ANCAP Chairman, Mr Lauchlan McIntosh.
"A purpose-built crash test facility in Melaka has enabled ASEAN NCAP to conduct safety tests on a range of locally built and locally sold cars. Their testing has already resulted in manufacturers increasing levels of safety across a handful of models and we will be sure to see results improve as their test program continues."
"This is a significant achievement which will lead to safer vehicles across Southeast Asia."
"ASEAN countries are experiencing growth at a variable rate but one thing for sure is the mobility of the people is progressively increasing. The need for safer vehicles will match the increased risk while on the road," said Mr McIntosh.
Phase one ASEAN NCAP testing involved a frontal offset crash test. Phase two of ASEAN NCAP testing will commence later this year with future plans to introduce a second side impact test.
Further details on the ASEAN NCAP test program can be found at www.aseancap.org.
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Image source: Bosch
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SAT Explained: Adaptive Cruise Control.
The ANCAP Rating Road Map sets out future progressive changes to the ANCAP testing regime. The Road Map introduces new tests, new calculation methods, new safety assist technology (SAT) requirements and the like.
Generally each year, the number of mandatory and additional SAT required by a vehicle will increase. The mandatory SAT required to achieve a 5 star ANCAP safety rating in 2013 includes electronic stability control (ESC), three-point seat belts for all forward-facing seats, head-protecting technology (side curtain airbags) for front seats, seat belt reminders for front seats and emergency brake assist (EBA). A minimum of three additional SAT are also required, such as adaptive cruise control (ACC).
ACC uses forward-looking radar to detect vehicles travelling ahead in the same lane and automatically adjusts the car's speed to maintain a safe following distance.
ACC is similar to conventional cruise control in that it maintains the vehicle's pre-set speed. Unlike conventional cruise control however, ACC can automatically adjust the vehicle's speed in order to maintain a safe distance between vehicles.
In the case of a vehicle travelling ahead slowing down, the engine or braking system of the ACC-equipped vehicle will cause it to decelerate to maintain a safe distance. When the road ahead is then clear, the ACC system will accelerate the vehicle back to the pre-set speed.
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Interview with Lauchlan McIntosh, ANCAP Chair and
Global NCAP Trustee.
How did you become involved in vehicle safety?
I have had an interest in safety in the workplace since my first job as an apprentice electrician and I was encouraged to see the benefits of safety management by my father, who was the Master of Apprentices for a major steel company. Much later as a mine manager and then the national Executive Director of the Australian Mining Industry Council I was actively involved in improving workplace safety through a range of measures. When I became Executive Director of the Australian Automobile Association (AAA) in 1994, as the representative of the six million members of the state-based motoring organisations, I was appointed as their representative on the relatively new Australasian New Car Assessment Program (ANCAP). I was surprised, and shocked at the different crash test results from the early ANCAP tests; in particular the generally poor results. I could see the potential of the ANCAP
non-regulatory program to encourage manufacturers to make safer cars.
What have been ANCAP's greatest successes?
We have been a contributor to the early introduction of safer cars into the Australian and New Zealand new car market. The concerns I had in 1994 with the disappointing range of crashworthiness performance between the cars of various manufacturers and the resulting risks for victims of car crashes have diminished greatly. Consumers and manufacturers were initially surprisingly unsupportive and dismissive of ANCAP safety ratings despite the NHTSA experience that "Safety Sells Cars" by the early 90s. Around 75 per cent of new cars sold in Australia and New Zealand now have a 5 star ANCAP safety rating. Consumers are now actively interested and asking for ANCAP safety ratings before they buy a new car and governments and many corporations are demanding minimum 5 star ANCAP safety ratings for their fleets.
What's the next big thing in safety for vehicles and what are the likely benefits?
We have the view that the various collision avoidance technologies such as autonomous emergency braking (AEB) will lead to reductions in the crash rate and could be considered the next 'seat belt' or
'ESC' equivalent in terms of saving lives. Real-world performance data suggests that AEB can reduce crashes by from 14 to 27 per cent.
ANCAP is working with manufacturers to reward the early introduction AEB as a mandatory safety assist technology as part of its Road Map negotiations.
Cars that don't crash might seem like a dream, but we have such expectations in rail and air travel. If ANCAP and our colleagues around the world can help realise such a dream, millions of lives will be saved, tens of millions of injuries avoided and so much unnecessary personal trauma and cost saved.
The full interview can be viewed on the Global NCAP website.
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Family Safety Reinforced.
Following on from the success of ANCAP's "Meet the family that could save yours" online advertising campaign which ran nationally across online motoring and news sites in the first half of 2012, phase two of this campaign commenced in late 2012. This second wave of the campaign saw ANCAP's 'crash test family' return, highlighting the importance a 5 star vehicle can make in protecting your loved ones.
Campaign advertisements featured in the motoring and sport sections of all major metropolitan newspapers in November and December. The online component of the campaign ran throughout the carsales.com.au network in December and January 2013.
The objective of the campaign was to encourage all new car purchasers to consider ANCAP safety ratings as a key part of the decision-making process. As a result of phase two of the campaign, visits to the ANCAP mobile website throughout the duration of the campaign increased by 56% compared to the same period the year prior. Visits to the regular ANCAP website also increased by 24%. |
ANCAP's Newest Fleet Acquisition.
Meet Jason. Jason Smith is the newest member of the ANCAP 'fleet', commencing in the role of Graduate Engineer from February 2013.
Jason graduated with Second-Class A Grade Honours in a Bachelor of Systems Engineering (majoring in Mechanics and Renewable Energy) from the Australian National University last year, and will work closely with ANCAP Technical Manager, Michael Paine and the other assessment engineers / technicians on vehicle assessments and engineering policy matters.
During his studies, Jason has been working for ANCAP in a casual capacity for the past 12 months and was instrumental in preparing the NCAP Test Protocol Discussion Paper tabled at the inaugural Global NCAP Expert Technical Working Group Meeting held in Tokyo last September. Jason has also worked on road infrastructure safety projects for the International Roads Assessment Programme (iRAP).
Jason will be based at the ANCAP National Secretariat and can be contacted on 02 6232 0232 or by email to jason.smith@ancap.com.au.
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Rethinking Pedestrian Headform Testing.
The Centre for Automotive Safety Research (CASR), run out of The University of Adelaide, is a specialist research and testing laboratory which conducts ANCAP pedestrian tests.
Introduced in 2000, ANCAP pedestrian tests are designed to measure the risk of injury to pedestrians in a collision with the front of the vehicle. Many kinds of crash tests use instrumented dummies to measure injury risk, but for pedestrian safety tests, 'sub-system' impactors (head / legforms) representing different regions of the body are used. The different impactors represent the head of an adult, the head of a child, the upper leg of an adult and the knee / lower leg.
As part of CASR's ongoing research program, ensuring continuous improvement in the area of pedestrian testing, CASR researchers recently completed a project which considered underbonnet clearance and the effect different head impact points have on the overall pedestrian head impact assessment. Five ANCAP test vehicles were used for this research project.
In a pedestrian headform test, a dummy head is fired into the bonnet of the test vehicle. In some cases, the space between the bonnet and the hard engine components underneath can be quite small, which can lead to dangerous impacts that 'bottom out'.
The clearances were used in an assessment model developed at CASR, in which the vehicle's performance across a full range of real world crash speeds is considered. The underbonnet clearances were used to predict the performance of the vehicles at speeds where bottoming out might occur.
Results of the project demonstrated that due to limited underbonnet clearance in some cases certain headform test locations may be potentially more dangerous than what would be indicated by current methods of assessment.
A copy of the report can be found here.
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IIHS Test Protocols Updated.
In December 2012, the United States' Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) released updates to three of its crash test protocols:
The majority of ANCAP testing is conducted based on Euro NCAP test protocols with the exception of dynamic head restraint (whiplash) testing and the soon to be introduced roof strength test which will be based on the IIHS Roof Strength Test Protocol.
ANCAP is introducing roof strength testing from 2014 as part of its forward Road Map. This test will be a "Quazi-static" test to determine the strength of a vehicles roof (resistance force) - producing a Strength to Weight Ratio (SWR) based on the kerb mass of the vehicle. A minimum SWR of 2.5 will be required in order to achieve the minimum roof strength rating of 'Marginal' for a 5 star ANCAP safety rating from 2014.
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Crash-tested Jeep takes Pride of Place as Part of Forensic Exhibit.
Following testing last year, CQUniversity has taken ownership of a new, albeit crash-tested, Jeep Wrangler as part of its Forensic Exhibit Crash Lab.
The Jeep Wrangler underwent a frontal offset crash test at 64 km/h. This model was also tested for pedestrian protection as part of its overall safety assessment.
The Jeep will take pride of place within the soon to be built Forensic Exhibit Crash Lab facility at the Bundaberg Campus and will assist students in achieving their further qualifications in Accident Forensics and Accident Investigations.
CQUniversity offers a Bachelor of Accident Forensics through its Rockhampton and Bundaberg campuses, as well as through distance education. The University also offers a Master of Accident Investigation (Specialisation) by distance education. The bachelor degree aims to give students the skills to conduct and analyse accident investigations based on knowledge and techniques appropriate to accident forensics in road, rail, air and industrial environments.
The Jeep Wrangler JK Sport (2 door) 3.6L V6 holds a 4 star ANCAP safety rating. ANCAP recommends vehicles with the maximum 5 star ANCAP safety rating.
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You asked us...
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Are side and/or curtain airbags expected to inflate when a car is rolled or do they work only during side impact?
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Our expert said...
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Some side airbag / side curtain systems are designed to deploy in a rollover event as well as side impact crashes. At this stage it is not possible to readily identify which ones have this feature as there are no performance standards or regulations to go by. In recent years however there have been several models where the side curtains deploy in the frontal offset crash test. This is because the rebound motion of the vehicle in this test is similar to the start of a rollover crash.
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You asked us...
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Does the fitting of a sunroof effect the structural integrity of the vehicle?
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Our expert said...
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In the case of original-equipment (OEM) sunroofs, manufacturers are required to ensure that the vehicle continues to meet the Australian Design Rules when a sunroof is fitted. In the case of aftermarket sunroofs there are national guidelines for ensuring that the vehicle structure is not adversely affected. Provided these requirements are met, ANCAP ratings apply to vehicles fitted with a sunroof.
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