New Land Rover Discovery scores five-star safety

Land Rover’s much-anticipated fifth-generation Discovery has been awarded a five-star safety rating.

The Australasian New Car Assessment Program (ANCAP) said the Discovery scored strongly across four areas of safety assessment, achieving “90 per cent for Adult Occupant Protection, 80 per cent for Child Occupant Protection, 75 per cent for Pedestrian Protection and a Safety Assist score of 73 per cent.

“The Discovery earned its 5 star safety rating showing strengths in structure, design and equipment,” said ANCAP chief executive James Goodwin.

“Crash test dummy readings indicated good levels of protection of all critical body regions in the side impact test as well as the more severe side pole test. Protection of the knees and femurs for both the driver and passenger in the frontal offset test was also good,”

“There was however insufficient pressure in the driver’s airbag which saw the dummy’s head contact the steering wheel and a penalty was applied in the scoring,” Goodwin said.

“The Discovery is fitted as standard with all three grades of autonomous emergency braking – City, Interurban and Vulnerable Road User – and all performed well during testing.”

The Discovery launches in Australia next week. Included in its standard safety arsenal are curtain airbags for all three rows, a manual speed-limiter and emergency stop signal.

Australian-spec models will miss out on a new automatic speed-limiting system available in European models.