Utes and vans the new safety target

ANCAP has begun focusing its attention on commercial vehicles. Secondary safety for commercial vehicles should not be of secondary importance, the independent crash test body argues.

ANCAP (The Australian New Car Assessment Program) will release another round of results next month, including the safety ratings for two popular workhorses: the Toyota LandCruiser and Nissan Patrol cab-chassis utes.

Both vehicles are based on decades-old architecture. Neither is available with anti-lock brakes and the LandCruiser only gained front airbags in the past 12 months.

ANCAP crash tested the LandCruiser ute earlier this month, and did the final test on the Patrol ute this week, but the results are yet to be analysed.

"Workplace safety is of increasing importance and we don't see why the drivers of commerical vehicles don't deserve the same protection as drivers of passenger cars," said Lachlan McIntosh, the chairman of ANCAP. "These people have families too."

ANCAP has always tested commercial vehicles but it plans to test a higher proportion of utes and vans given the improvements in passenger car safety mean that most cars now score four or five stars.

But as recently as last year, ANCAP awarded a one star rating to the Malaysian made Proton Jumbuck ute (pictured) and a two-star rating to the Chinese-made Great Wall ute.

Despite an overhaul in the safety of new cars over the past two decades, the level of crash protection in utilities still lags well behind that of passenger vehicles.

According to Australian government regulations, passenger cars must provide adequate occupant protection in a crash into an offset barrier at 56km/h; utilities crash into a flat barrier at 48km/h. But these requirements are severely outdated.

ANCAP conducts offset crash tests at 64km/h -- significantly higher than the basic government requirements for both cars and commercial vehicles.

The anomaly in Australian regulations (between cars and utes) comes despite a report submitted to the Australian Federal Government in 1996 that strongly recommended the safety of utes be brought into line with, or more closely aligned to, the safety levels of passenger cars.

As the report by the then Federal Office of Road Safety pointed out: "Utilities are not currently subject to the full set of Australian Design Rules that apply to passenger cars and their derivatives."

Incredibly, 15 years on, there is still a canyon between the minimum safety standards applied to utes compared to cars. Further, most utes still lack even the availability of the latest safety aids such as stability control (which can prevent a skid) and "curtain" airbags (which can protect occupants in a side impact or roll-over).

One in seven of all new vehicles sold in Australia is a utility (according to 2010 sales figures from the Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries), and there is increasing evidence of crew cab utes being used as family transport on weekends.

In a chilling forecast, the 1996 FORS report said: "Given the increasing use of ... utilities for private use as alternatives to passenger cars, it could be argued that they should also be expected to provide similar levels of occupant protection as passenger cars. Thus, a strong case is mounted for [such] vehicles to be similarly regulated. In particular they should at least be required to meet the new dynamic frontal crash performance requirement, as well as side impact regulations."

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