What you need to know about ANCAP crash testing

Australia has a long history of government-mandated safety measures. In 1970, Victoria was the world’s first legislature to decree mandatory wearing of seatbelts and we’ve also been on the front foot for the compulsory fitment of stability control systems.

But in some quarters of the community, the Federal Government's vehicle type approval and Australian Design Rules (ADR) were perceived to be inadequate. ANCAP (see below) was born in 1992 to address this perception, to shake up the car companies and offer consumers independent advice concerning the relative safety of any new car available for purchase.

The Australasian New Car Assessment Program (ANCAP) is an independent research organisation which conducts crash tests to assess how safe a vehicle is in the event of an impact. It is not a government department, although it receives support from federal and state government bodies.

Formed in 1992, the organisation was the Australian version of NCAP, a North American safety program developed in 1979 by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). NCAP is an acronym for 'New Car Assessment Program'.

From around 2005 New Zealand's Automobile Association and Department of Transport joined the local program. As a consequence, the A in ANCAP became Australasian, reflecting the Kiwi involvement.

ANCAP conducts crash tests of popular new cars to specific standards which are arguably more demanding than the testing required to be carried out by the car companies to comply with government regulation. Cars are rated by ANCAP according to the level of protection they afford the occupants (and pedestrians).

In many cases ANCAP buys cars to test. Occasionally supportive car companies supply vehicles to the organisation. The test results are published on ANCAP's own website and other sites including the Victorian TAC’s How safe is Your Car site.

Currently ANCAP conducts five tests. The (60:40) frontal offset test protocol involves slamming a car front-first into a crushable aluminium barrier at 64km/h. In this test, the car is run along a track, aligned in such a way that the car strikes the barrier on the driver's side only – 40% of the car's frontal crash structure. This mimics a crash in which a car pulls out to overtake and meets an oncoming vehicle.

Traditional crash tests conducted to meet the requirements of government legislation have not been 'offset' impacts. In these traditional tests, the energy from the impact can be absorbed across the entire width of the car's frontal crash structure, dissipating the forces much easier than in an offset test.

Car companies originally objected to ANCAP's use of offset tests – and at the 64km/h closing speed – but many manufacturers now design cars specifically to achieve a high score for frontal offset testing.

Another of the five tests conducted by ANCAP is the side impact test, which requires a 950kg trolley to be rammed into the side of a test vehicle to assess crash resistance in the event of being 'T-boned' at an intersection.

A third test evaluates the controlled deformation of a car's bonnet. Head injuries suffered by pedestrians are often worse in the case of older vehicle designs featuring a solid bonnet with a long engine underneath. Modern cars come with pedestrian-protecting airbags to lift the bonnet clear of the engine and soften the force of the impact as the pedestrian's head contacts the bonnet.

If a vehicle can achieve a 'five-star' rating, it can be subjected to a pole test. Unlike the side impact test, this test mimics a vehicle slamming sideways into a tree or pole, so the impact forces are much more narrowly spread and could kill or severely injure a passenger in the path of the impact.

The final of the five tests measures whiplash. A seat of the same design fitted to the car is mounted on a sled, which accelerates at a rate of speed equivalent to a vehicle being hit from behind by another travelling at 32km/h.

For a test such as whiplash, accelerometers fitted to crash test dummies can record the g forces (change of inertia) to which the dummy has been subjected.

Engineers inspect the crashed vehicles and observe where the structure has been weaker than desirable. The car’s score will be reduced if, for example, a door pops open as a consequence of the impact, or parts of the crash structure penetrate the cabin.

Until 1999, ANCAP test results were presented in much the same format as the American NCAP results – measured with adjectives 'Good', 'Acceptable', 'Marginal' and 'Poor'. After 1999, ANCAP adopted the European Euro NCAP system of a star rating, numbered from one to five, with one being the worst score and five being the best.

For internal use, ANCAP has stayed with the NCAP system applied to different parts of the human body in order to calculate the five-star rating. A vehicle earns five stars if protection is deemed 'good' for most of the body and at least 'acceptable' for the lower legs. In contrast, a car is rated at four stars if overall adult protection is 'good', at least 'marginal' for the driver and front passenger's thorax (chest), and marginal too for the driver's right leg.

For three stars, the vehicle has to offer ‘marginal’ protection as a minimum for the driver's upper body (including head), and ‘good’ protection for front passenger's head and lower left leg, plus ‘acceptable’ protection for the rest of the passenger's body.

A two-star rating allows for 'poor' protection of the driver's head, lower right leg and both feet, as well as the front passenger's upper left arm, as long as all other parts are subject to 'marginal' protection.

Finally, a one-star car is considered to offer ‘poor’ protection for the driver and front passenger's heads, as well as ‘poor’ protection for the driver's lower limbs.

The various thresholds of protection are calculated on a cumulative score from the outcome of the crash test and downloading of accelerometer stats from the crash test dummies.

In 2017, a five-star car has to achieve at least 12.5 points out of 16 possible for a 'good' score in the frontal offset test. Additionally, the car must also achieve 12.5 points out of 16 for a ‘good’ side impact test, plus at least one out of two points for the pole test, an ‘acceptable’ rating for pedestrian protection, a ‘good’ rating for whiplash and at least six points for safety-assist technology (SAT) - see below.

Prior to 2016, a five-star car needed just five points for SAT, and up until 2015, whiplash protection only required an ‘acceptable’ rating for five stars. Before 2014, pedestrian protection was fine with a ‘marginal’ rating only for five-star cars, and prior to 2012 it didn't figure in the five-star rating at all.

Similarly, a whiplash rating wasn't required for cars tested before 2012 to be considered five-star safe. SAT standards have changed over the years also, with no requirement in 2011 for five-star cars, two points required in 2012, three in 2013, four in 2014, five in 2015 and six from 2016 onwards.

Stability control (originally mandated by the Victorian Government for all cars sold in the state from 2011), is one example of SAT which must be fitted for cars to be judged five-star safe since 2012.

Other examples include three-point seat belts and head-protecting airbags for the front seats. The combination of these and stability control are worth two points, according to ANCAP. Adding emergency brake assist and seatbelt reminders to the 2012 SAT minimum raised the score to three points in 2013. For 2014, the minimum (four points) became all the above, plus head-protecting airbags for rear-seat passengers.

The following year stipulated five points as a minimum for a five-star car, comprising all the SAT from the previous year plus seatbelt reminders for the second-row seating. For 2016, ANCAP stayed with the SAT minimum requirement, but in 2017 top-tether anchorages for child safety seats were added to the 2016 specification.

Top-tether anchorages were already mandated by ADR, but some cars sold in Australia in the past featured mounting brackets for ISOFIX seats, but not the top-tether anchorage points which were a legal requirement for non-ISOFIX seats.

With some degree of difficulty, would be the smart-aleck response. As cars have become safer, the five-star rating has gone from being a challenging achievement to one applicable to literally 92 per cent of new passenger cars on sale.

Faced with either adding sixth and seventh stars to accommodate new engineering advances in safety, or revising the parameters for the five existing safety ratings, ANCAP chose the latter.

ANCAP has endeavoured to keep the five-star rating relevant by adding a year stamp – distinguishing cars tested and found to be five-star safe in 2011 and earlier from those tested in 2017. It introduced an element of complexity in what should be a simple, 'transparent' process for the consumer. In theory, a four-star car sold in 2017 might be safer than a five-star car sold in 2013.

To explain that: a car tested in 2017 may achieve the 32.5-point combined score for 'frontal offset', 'side impact' and 'side-pole' tests, but if it doesn't also achieve an 'acceptable' pedestrian rating, a 'good' whiplash rating, and it doesn't come equipped with the necessary safety-assist technology, it will be rated four stars only.

The SAT features for 2017 include: Stability control, three-point seatbelts, pre-tensioners, seatbelt reminders for front and second-row seats, emergency brake assist and top-tether anchorage points for ISOFIX child safety seats.

In contrast, a five-star car tested in 2013 will get there with 32.5 points for frontal offset, side and side pole tests, in combination with 'marginal' pedestrian and 'acceptable' whiplash ratings, plus the SAT features required for that year.

The SAT features needed for a five-star rating in 2013 were: stability control, three-point seatbelts, front-seat pre-tensioners, front seatbelt reminders and emergency brake assist.

During these intermediate years, as ANCAP rolled out its 'road map' for future safety testing, the organisation's primary focus changed from secondary safety to a blend of secondary and primary safety.

Primary safety is a basket of features to help a driver avoid death or injury in the first place. Examples of these items include stability control, cross-traffic alert, seatbelt reminders, autonomous emergency braking and driver fatigue warning.

Secondary safety concerns what happens after a car has hit something, how well it crumples and protects the occupants. In essence, ANCAP's role changed because cars became too safe to judge on their secondary-safety merits alone.

ANCAP's current testing protocols are made more confusing still with the introduction of a 'two-path' approach, which allowed Australian-tested cars to be held to a lower standard for a five-star rating during the lead-up to the end of local manufacturing. A Commodore built in 2017 is not necessarily as safe as a Peugeot 508 sold in Australia during the same year.

With the benefit of hindsight, NCAP's rating system of Good/Acceptable/Marginal/Poor might have been future-proof in ways ANCAP’s five-star system isn't.

Another point to bear in mind with ANCAP results is the question of using data supplied by overseas counterparts (Euro NCAP being the principle example) and extrapolating a safety rating – without actually crash-testing a car locally.

It's easy to overlook the fine print in ANCAP results, explaining that the safety rating doesn't apply to all variants in a model range.

There is some good news for consumers using ANCAP when researching a new-car purchase. From 2018 ANCAP's testing regime will align with Euro NCAP's, and the two-path approach will be dropped.

ANCAP's testing procedures have barely changed over the years, other than introducing new tests such as pedestrian protection and whiplash. But NCAP in the U.S. has now developed a newer, more demanding frontal offset crash test, the 'small overlap' test. Introduction of this test to ANCAP's protocols would further muddy the waters for consumers, making it unlikely ANCAP will adopt the new test.

Finally, a small car which is five-star safe is not necessarily going to protect the occupants as well as a five-star safe large car.

ANCAP has been in the gunsights of car companies in the past, because its tests were deemed controversial – test speeds were too high and the frontal-offset crash was unlikely to replicate precisely every circumstance of many crashes.

ANCAP was frequently derided for these reasons by safety experts employed by the car companies. But ANCAP argued that a guide for consumers was better than no information at all, and it needed to send a clear message to (some) car companies that they had to lift their game.

While ANCAP has attracted criticism for its constantly changing rating system, no longer does anyone question ANCAP's methodology for crash testing, and the organisation has an established reputation for supplying the best available data in the field.

ANCAP receives support from an amalgam of motoring associations (such as the NRMA and RACV), and State and Federal Government bodies tasked with improving road safety. Among the government organisations are the Federal Department of Infrastructure and Regional Development, and Victoria's Transport Accident Commission.

Related: What are Used Car Safety Ratings?

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Related: Why Australia needs ANCAP