As for floppy people - in a crash they are not.
All the 5* cars have seat belt pre tensioners, that suddenly drag you back into the seat and clamp you there rigidly.
Most people are suddenly anchored tight.
Think it was demonstrated on tele when they crashed a new 5* megane with a real driver at 30mph.
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patp, it might be a good idea to read up on the testing procedures at www.euroncap.com
I dunno about the aside from the repeatability question, but some of the things which I noticed there:
* the star rating should only be used to compare cars in the same category (FAQs 21&22, see www.euroncap.com/content/faqs/faqs.php ). So a 4star-rated small car is not actually getting the same score as a 4star-rated big car, which that sems to me to be a really important point, and not widely noted
* the pedestrian tests are quite limited, and appear not to check in any way for the way 4X4s can drag a person under the car
* there are no tests for the safety of rear seat occupants, apart from the childrens tests (so, for examnple, the Fiat Panda wouldn't lose any points for the exposed sharp seat runners which HJ noted in his review)
I'm sure they are useful tests, and that they do give a general overview of which cars are, in general, better than others ... but they do have quite a few limitations, and shouldn't be taken as gospel
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I agree with HJ and Patp. Im not aware they take into consideration crash avoidance either, ie how well a car handles or how good the brakes are because these surely will effect greatly any damage in a potential accident.
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PR, the EuroNcap website only describes impact tests, so I'm fairly sure that you are right -- only passive safety is tested.
My guess would be that active safety is pretty hard to test, because it's so dependant on driver input: e.g. even the best braking system still depends on driver response time.
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When I lived in Birmingham I knew a guy who worked for the accident investigation department of the University Their job was to investigate real world RTA's. A wealth of information: I think Renault 5's used to have their jack (and spare wheel) under the bonnet. After various accidents where occupants got hand injuries, Renault moved the jack elsewhere...
His view was quite clear: buy big and heavy. In a crash between big and heavy and small and light, big and heavy always comes off best. One of the TV programmes also indicated a while ago that newer is also better, so design is improving. Mark's other tip was restrain your luggage: certainly in an estate, and, depending on the seat back, possibly in a saloon as well.
Tim{P}
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In a crash between big and heavy and small and light, big and heavy always comes off best
I think that's one of the biggest failings of EuroNCAP. The way its ratings are commonly presented, it would be esay to think the the 4-star Honda Jazz was as safe as the 4-star Volvo S80.
Not so -- but how many buyers read the small print to find that out?
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A good point, NW. But I suspect that someone in the market for a Jazz would not want an S80.
And if they only want a car that will protect them, hello X5...!
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In a crash between big and heavy and small and light, big and heavy always comes off best.
Which is why NCAP crash the cars into concrete blocks. There is a serious compatibility problem otherwise; in a crash into the same car, the hard structures will be at the same height, so crashing two together will bring those hard parts together and flatter the result. If one hit a car with a hard structure that was just above, the result might not be so good. So NCAP do the only thing they can do in order to be consistent.
Incidentally, my source tells me that the manufacturer of the tensioned-wire barriers that are placed in central reservations deliberately used a Saab 9000 as their test vehicle. The test required a glancing side impact, for obvious reasons, and the Saab has a side impact bar at exactly the right height. Hence, the result was impressive. A different car would have been cut open by the steel cable, gashing into the driver footwell and failing.
Mind you, he sells a different system....
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While it is true that there are lots of variables that aren't considered by NCAP ratings, I don't think anyone can argue that cars have been made less safe overall by its recommendations. Therefore, I see it as a good thing.
One of the interesting (to me anyway!) variables that isn't currently explored is speed. Manufacturers know what speeds thir car will be tested at, and can therefore optimise their vehicles for this speed. For some vehicles, particularly four wheel drives with stiff chassis rails, predicted injuries are very sensitive to airbag timing. Obviously, setting the airbag timing only works over a narrow speed range. So you could end up with a scenario where little injury would occur at 30, but more injury than the energy increase would imply would occur at 40mph. As the kinetic energy is proportional to speed squared, even 'small' changes in speed can give marked changes in crash performance.
I would be happier if more variation of speed were included in the tests to prevent excessive 'tuning' by manufacturers which isn't representative of real life crashes.
number_cruncher
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This is all very interesting, and as I suspected, there's a lot more to this than I knew about. But it does seem I'm right about one thing - you could only really find out a relative safety rating by crashing lots of cars at different speeds and driver reactions.
I do wonder about all this risk avoidance though. I liked TE Lawrences idea that the safest car would be one where a big spike was mounted on the steering wheel pointed at the driver. Should be law for X5's if you ask me (though they do seem to be driven quite slowly on the whole, presumably because they cost the same as many people's houses).
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Incidentally, my source tells me that the manufacturer of the tensioned-wire barriers that are placed in central reservations deliberately used a Saab 9000 as their test vehicle. The test required a glancing side impact, for obvious reasons, and the Saab has a side impact bar at exactly the right height. Hence, the result was impressive. A different car would have been cut open by the steel cable, gashing into the driver footwell and failing.
And the wires are the same height as a motorcyclists foot - immediately they were installed on the motorway around Bristol someone I know had to move over when a car driver pulled into lane 3 - he would have scraped along armco, but lost his foot on the wire restraint.
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Ouch.
I do keep more clear of the wire restraints than armco, I have to say.
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Interesting one this.
My wife recently bought a Fiat Punto which has a 4 star rating and so is one of the safest small cars around.
My mate who works in the accident business says that he would rather not be seen dead in one.
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Jaguar XJs and XJSs are, IMO, very good for the car's occupants. Some time ago, a friend of mine worked at MIRA doing the occupant equivalent of crash tests.
He said that while other manufacturers have to do lots of tweaking to reduce intrusion, and the head injury criterion value for the dummy down to acceptable levels, as Jaguars had long bonnets, and smoother decelerations, with a lower peak 'g' level, they just routinely turned up, did the test, and passed it.
number_cruncher
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