EuroNCAP survives and surpasses its critics

But today, a five-star result for a car in the program is heralded by the carmakers and promoted as evidence of their excellence in occupant safety performance.

This week, the EuroNCAP program - which is run by a range of European motoring and road safety organisations - celebrated ten years of operation since it was first established in 1995 and its results are widely regarded by both the automotive industry and the car buying public.

EuroNCAP runs a series of laboratory crash tests including frontal offset, side impact, pole and pedestrian tests on new cars to determine their comparative occupant protection. Measurements are taken for a range of potential injuries in different body areas for both driver and front passenger. The results of these crash tests are then analysed and each vehicle within the category is rated with the maximum score being five stars.

The first tests were conducted on a group of cars in what Europeans dub the supermini class (light cars in Australia) with the worst performer being the Rover 100, which achieved just 1 star.

According to EuroNCAP, the poor performance of the Rover 100 had dramatic results with some police forces refusing to use these cars and some mothers refusing to use child minders who ferried children around in these vehicles.

But it was not only small cars that performed poorly in the crash tests. The second round of testing in 1997 tested a range of family cars including brands that pride themselves on the safety performance of their products.

In this second round of testing Mercedes C180 achieved just two stars while the BMW 316i and Saab 900 managed an overall EuroNCAP rating of just one and a half stars!

The publication of these results enraged the European manufacturers who continued to criticise the testing methods and rating methodology.

Mercedes-Benz' then chief safety engineer, Ingo Kallina said at the time that while the principle of EuroNCAP was a good idea, the testing criteria and subsequent ratings system of EuroNCAP were misleading.

He said the frontal test, which used a car crashing into a deformable barrier 40 per cent offset at 64kmh, favoured cars with stiff frontal structures while the current thinking was leading safety engineers from companies like Mercedes and Saab to develop softer deformable front end structures.

 It was this new trend towards softer front structures that was the reason for the three carmakers poor EuroNCAP results as the cars were designed to have a degree of frontal deformation that exceeds the test criteria, Kallina said.

He said the simplistic nature of the test and comparative rating and its publication could result in carmakers having to resort to stiffer front end structures in order to be seen to do well in the tests.

"What is the public perception if Mercedes only gets two stars," Kallina said.

"Can we survive if we don't get four stars," he said.

The same reaction to the early tests was displayed in Australia where the industry and its representative body, the Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries, refused to acknowledge the value of the crash test results and claimed they were not representative of real world safety.

There was even a gentleman's agreement among the local manufacturers and importers that they would not use the results in any positive promotions of their products.

However all that changed when Renault became the first carmaker to achieve a five star rating in 2001 for the Laguna mid-sized hatch.

The local press release noted: "The 1.8-litre European model Laguna is the first and only car in the world to achieve a five-star rating for impact protection in the independent Euro NCAP crash testing programme."

Finally it seemed, EuroNCAP tests were being seen by the carmakers as something they could no longer ignore as the awareness among the broader community had strengthened too such a degree that the carmakers could see enormous value in promoting the results for marketing reasons.

There has also, on occasions, been some acknowledgement by the car industry that through EuroNCAP's publication of comparative crash test results, carmakers were forced to look at the sort of occupant protection their vehicles offered.

Last year, at September's Paris motor show, then Renault Chairman and CEO, Louis Schweitzer, said that the organisation had the respect of the motoring industry and was playing a vital role in driving innovation to make cars safer.

"Euro NCAP is driving us to make safer cars," said Mr. Schweitzer said at the time.

"Five years ago safety was a very low consideration when buying a new car. Now it is one of the most important factors. The industry respects the work of Euro NCAP – we all think that it is fair – it has created a level playing field for manufacturers.

"Euro NCAP provides the facts that either back or buck manufacturers' claims about a car – it provides a vital reality check," Schweitzer said.

Commenting on EuroNCAP's ten-year anniversary Edmund King, the executive director of the UK-based RAC Foundation - one of the members of EuroNCAP, said that this reality check was evident in the growing number of five-star cars that are now on the market.

"Euro NCAP has transformed in-car safety," he says.

"I was shocked and felt physically sick looking at some of the first cars crashed. Having seen some of the results close up I vowed never to ever travel in certain cars but to campaign for safety improvements. It is gratifying to see that ten years later many of the poorer performers are now five star cars."

Throughout its history, to combat any manufacturer's claims of bias, ENCAP has always bought its cars anonymously and has spent over $14 million on more than 400 cars representing over 200 different models.

Current organisations participating in Euro NCAP include the Departments of Transport of Sweden, The Netherlands, France, Germany, and the UK as well as the European Commission, the FIA Foundation (of which RAC Foundation is a member), the Allgemeiner Deutscher Automobile-Club (ADAC), Thatcham on behalf of the British Motor Insurers and the International Consumer Research and Testing (ICRT) on behalf of the European consumer organisations.

In Australia, ANCAP is run by the state motoring organisations and supported by the state government road and transport authorities.

Over the past ten years, the test protocols and procedures have been refined and added to and now include ratings for child safety and pedestrian safety in an effort to continue to encourage carmakers to improve the safety of their vehicles by publishing independent tests for consumers.

With the marketing muscle that now lies behind it, it would appear that EuroNCAP and its local version ANCAP are likely to be around for at least another 10 years.