Global crash safety body NCAP has announced details of a controversial one-off test to be held in the US later this month to highlight the disparity in new-vehicle safety standards around the world.
While developed countries such as the US, UK and Australia have made a firm push towards more standard safety inclusions in modern vehicles, the same cannot be said of developing nations, many of which are yet to make airbags, anti-locking brakes or stability control mandatory.
As such, UK-based Global NCAP said this week that it will conduct a collision between two passenger cars of the same type, from the same manufacturer at a closing speed of almost 130km/h. One will be a Mexican market entry-level car, the other will be an equivalent model from the US market.
It is hoped the one-off test will highlight the gulf in safety standards and standard safety technology between the two markets, therefore prompting governments to regulate more features and for manufacturers to voluntarily lift their game.
David Ward, the secretary general of Global NCAP, told English publication Autocar that governments and the industry need to address current double standards.
“In Mexico at the moment, there are no crash test standards,” he said. “They’ve announced this year that they will apply them, but not to all production cars until 2020.
“It’s very globally relevant. Roughly speaking, 50 per cent of new vehicles worldwide are manufactured in emerging markets and sold both in those markets and back to high-income countries. However, there are large parts of the world where there are no effective vehicle safety standards.”
Global NCAP is using the exercise to promote adoption of front and side crash test standards and stability control in developing countries in particular, Ward said.
“We’re trying to encourage, by 2020, that all major vehicle producing countries apply appropriate UN-based or equivalent standards, so that you create a common level playing field of safety globally,” Ward said.
“By 2020 we don’t want to see any new passenger cars at all that don’t have adequate crash standards and electronic stability control.”
Global NCAP is yet to nominate which manufacturer’s cars it will use for the one-off test. Ward stressed that the elected manufacturer would simply be representative of several car makers around the world – not a dig at one particular individual organisation.
“Mexico is a good example,” he said. “The best-selling car is the Chevrolet Aveo, which when tested by Latin NCAP last year got zero stars.
“We think it’s wrong that manufacturers are continuing to sell models like that. They should upgrade them, and it would be simple to standardise airbags.”
The crash test will be performed on October 27 at the US Institute of Highway Safety in Virginia. Each vehicle will be fitted with crash test dummies, and will be crashed into one another with a 50 per cent overlap and a combined closing speed of 129km/h (80mph). The tests will not lead to any official safety ratings.
“We haven’t had the crash yet but we expect that the body shell of the Mexican car will collapse,” Ward told Autocar.
“It doesn’t have airbags, and the other car has a better bodyshell and airbags. You’ll see very graphically the benefits of the safer vehicle, and it should be a very interesting test.”