Technical Paper
Study of Differences in Overall Ratings in New Car Assessment Programs
2017-01-10
2017-26-0017
In the 70’s, to reduce vehicle crash fatalities, NHTSA launched a Program, called NCAP, to compare the safety of cars. This Program was copied in Europe and around the world. It has been demonstrated that this kind of public assessment has forced OEM’s to invest in safety and to develop safer vehicles. Nowadays, NCAPs exist for nearly all regions around the world; all of them with the aim of improving vehicle safety. They apply the philosophy of an “overall rating”. In that way the information aims to be clearer and more general and will help to compare cars. Nevertheless, even though in every NCAP the overall assessment is given by a unique star rating, the specifications and requirements in each protocol are different. Each NCAP has been adapted to each region’s conditions, accidentology and traffic and therefore assessment criteria have their own peculiarities.
