It is a fact that safety sells cars – and drivers demand reliable and accurate information on the safety performances of cars before deciding what to buy. By law, all new car models must pass certain safety tests before they are sold. But legislation provides a minimum statutory standard of safety for new cars.

It is the aim of Euro NCAP to encourage manufacturers to exceed these minimum requirements, using a wide and far-reaching series of tests. Comprehensive tests are carried out to replicate accidents involving child and adult pedestrians where impacts occur at 40kph (25mph). Impact sites are then assessed and rated fair, weak and poor. As with other tests, these are based on European Enhanced Vehicle Safety Committee guidelines.

Hybrid III and EuroSID-I are the Euro NCAP crash-test dummies. Their role is vital: the accident simulations rely on having a driver and passenger aboard to provide a full picture of likely injuries in a crash, although the pedestrian safety tests use simulated limbs to chart what happens in a collision.

They are steel-skeletoned, rubber-skinned dummies packed with sensing equipment. They each cost in excess of £100,000 to build. Since January 2002, Euro NCAP has also introduced a more stringent pedestrian test rating, assessing the impact vehicles have on pedestrians during a collision.



VIEW RESULTS

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NOTE: Because of the changes to the pedestrian testing and rating procedure, a blue-star result cannot be compared with a green-star result.

* The latest test results were unavailable at the time of going to press.

For the latest updates vist www.euroncap.com