ANCAP aims higher

The Australasian New Car Assessment Program (ANCAP) was represented in Malaysia at the recent Global NCAP meeting; so far the largest gathering of vehicle assessment bodies. Outcomes of the assemblage included the introduction of a new car assessment program set for the ASEAN region and release of the ANCAP 'Road Map 2017' for Australian road users.

Efforts to standardise testing procedures and results in the region are important to the local industry in order to prevent import of unsatisfactory models to Australia, according to ANCAP, while targets set by the new safety Road Map will be enforced from 2013 with a view to exacting more challenging test ratings by 2017.

"We have to be active all the time in helping people understand what the benefits are in safer cars and encouraging manufacturers to add them," ANCAP Chairman Mr Lauchlan McIntosh told motoring.com.au. "You can regulate these things but regulations get caught up in trade issues and detail specifications, so some of these non-regulatory programs like NCAP actually work a lot quicker."

The new Global NCAP authority acts "like an overarching monitoring system -- mainly for developing countries," said Mr McIntosh. "The same 'level' of cars will eventually be sold all around the world and that will make a huge difference."

Meanwhile, test results and safety standards remain different between markets and manufacturers. For example, pedestrian safety is not counted among ANCAP's crash-worthiness rating: recently the Jeep Compass was awarded four stars by ANCAP but only two from Euro NCAP, mainly due to a poor assessment of the compact SUV's pedestrian protection. ANCAP publishes pedestrian safety results separately from a vehicle's crash worthiness rating.

"The difference between us and Europe is the weighting we give to the pedestrian rating, but is it equal with the crash worthiness result or is it something less? In various markets the pedestrian fatality and injury rate is different: In Japan, more than half of the fatalities [counted] from or in road crashes are pedestrians, and that's not the same here."

Pedestrians account for approximately 25 per cent of Australia's road toll, according to Mr McIntosh.

"So you've got to be careful about using the exact same rating [measures] because sometimes the traffic situation is different; we have quite a different traffic situation to Europe and while some could argue we should immediately adopt the European model, we could also argue they should adopt ours.

"Markets are different and we have to act accordingly... What we can do is take the information from our data and from the European data, and draw a conclusion... There's not a lot of cars that are different. In my view we shouldn't change everything just because one or two cars are different.

"We can look at those differences and we can see that in some of those cases regarding occupant protection arrangement, it [Jeep Compass] performs well. If we ignored the pedestrian ratings it would be a highly rated car so you have to make consumers aware of that.

"There are other models in that [compact SUV] category that perform badly on occupant protection and might perform well in pedestrian [safety] rating and would get a higher star rating, so that's not exactly what we want to tell consumers.

"What we've been doing for a long time, and expanding on, is gathering the best data for people to look at. So if consumers have any doubts or questions, and want to do some analysis they can work out those things for themselves. People travel differently; their roads are different including urban or rural environments. And therefore [potential] crashes are different.

"What we have to reflect in each market is the best rating for that market, and equally we must test where we can with the same protocol.

"Just as in some markets you can get LPG and in others you can't. If you were doing an environmental assessment you'd have to consider whether LPG is widely accessible or not: it's here widely but not in Europe so there's a different 'green' rating there than we have here."

New standards ahead include efforts to prevent whiplash injuries, with demand for a current 'acceptable' rating to match a 'good' verdict by 2014. "I think what will happen is that anything less than with four-star rating will not be sold eventually. That's what we'd hope for. Our aim is to not have those cars sold in the Australian and New Zealand markets," said Mr McIntosh.

"In the end the manufacturers know and will meet the performance levels; those who don't will be known as producing two or three star cars... No one will buy them, hopefully."

For new entrants in the market such as India and China it's particularly relevant, he suggested. "Those cars are being imported here and the manufacturers are aware of the set standards. If we can make sure the standards set there are the same as ours then we won't have to worry about inferior volume... Australia is a very small part of the world's market but it's very influential."

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