Crash testing for safety - possible enhancements to ANCAP test and rating methods

The Australasian New Car Assessment Program (ANCAP) started in 1992, based on a crash test program introduced by the US government in the 1970s. In 1993 ANCAP became the first organisation to introduce the frontal offset crash test. Subsequently various “NCAPs” have started in Europe, Japan and Korea, as well as at the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety in the USA. In 1999 ANCAP (then Australian NCAP) aligned its test and assessment protocols with Euro NCAP and has been republishing applicable European results each year. During 2008 Euro NCAP plans to implement major changes to its program. This paper outlines the Euro NCAP changes and discusses their applicability to Australia and New Zealand. Test and assessment methods by other NCAP organisations are also reviewed. Possible future enhancements to ANCAP are described. Introduction This paper reviews possible changes to the various New Car Assessment Programs around the world. It has been prepared for discussion purposes and should not be regarded as a policy statement. New Car Assessment Programs (NCAP), which are comparative crash testing programs providing consumers with relative information for new cars, operate in North America, Europe, Australasia, Japan and Korea. The first NCAP started in the USA in 1979, partly out of frustration with the slow process of regulating safer vehicles. NCAP was seen as a way of driving improvements to vehicle safety through consumer demand by pointing out that some vehicles offered far better protection from serious injury for occupants than those which just passed regulation requirements. The USA started out with a regulation full-frontal crash test but with the impact speed raised from 48km/h to 56km/h (resulting impact energy increased by about 36%). Australian NCAP (ANCAP) introduced the same crash test in 1992 and one year later was the first NCAP to introduce the frontal offset crash developed by the European Experimental Vehicles Committee (EEVC). Figure 1 shows the frontal offset crash test configuration. The first offset crash tests were conducted at 60km/h but this was increased to 64km/h in 1995, when the US Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) began frontal offset crash tests at 40mph (64km/h). These crash tests proved to be very demanding of vehicle structure at that time (Figure 4 1995). Rating protocols Initially ANCAP rated crash tests according to the risk of life-threatening injury using similar methods to the US NCAP injury risk based on dummy head injury criterion (HIC) and chest deceleration. However, cases were encountered where vehicle structure and/or restraint systems did not perform well but, by chance, the dummy injury measurements were relatively low. To cater for this ANCAP introduced structural and restraint system (seat belts and airbags) assessments in 1996. The assessment and scoring Figure 1. Offset crash test This paper has not been peer-reviewed November 2008, Adelaide, South Australia 2008 Australasian Road Safety Research, Policing and Education Conference