/// AUTOMOTIVE TESTING\\\
Crash test progress leaves industry behind
Automotive testing makes progress ahead of some sectors of the automotive industry as approval bodies stay ahead of the game
Crash testing has evolved considerably in the last 60 years but some automotive suppliers continue to disappoint by not making the grade
I
t has been clear from the very first days of private transport that some automotive manufacturers are way ahead of the others when it comes to the safety of vehicle occupants. Volvo has pioneered safety inno- vations that have become features that own- ers of all cars have later come to take for granted. While at its 8,100m2 facility in its Sin- delfingen laboratories, Mercedes carries out more crash tests a year than NCAP does. These two stalwarts of automotive safety set themselves apart from most other car makers, some of which fall short of the mark by creating variants for different markets, not being consistent across their range or not having insight into the vision of the testing laboratories about what the next step in car safety criteria is likely to be.
Moving goalposts \\\ The various National Car Assessment Pro-
gramme (NCAP) organisations are constantly adapting the way they test cars, the technol-
32 /// Climatic & Vibration Testing \\\ 2021
ogy they use and the criteria for achieving the various star ratings that are awarded. The industry has come a long way since the assessment of crashworthiness was based on how well a car performed when catapulted front first into a wall. Offset frontal crash test- ing was introduced to simulate the more re- alistic offset head-on collision between two vehicles. Later, side impact tests were intro- duced and pole tests. All while this was happening, occupant
safety improved and the NCAPs examined the effects of crashes on passengers as well as drivers and smaller child occupants. Vulnera- ble road user safety came later but has re- sulted in innovations that have saved the lives of cyclists and pedestrians that would other- wise have suffered because of rigid mascots and inflexible structural body components.
Active safety \\\ All of these changes in test criteria affected
passive safety systems but as automotive
technology improved to include hints at au- tonomy and driver assistance technology, these active safety systems came under the spotlight of the test organisations. Automatic Emergency Braking (AEB) has long been an essential for achieving the highest star rating and the list of essentials is constantly being added to. In the latest group of tests undertaken by
Euro NCAP, the Dacia Stepway (of both vari- ents: Sandero and Logan) failed to gain more than two stars because it fell short of the re- quirements for active safety systems. Ac- cording to Euro NCAP, the car remains true to the budget brand’s no-frills ethos and has a pared-down safety specification. The basic, radar-only autonomous emergency braking system reacts only to other vehicles but is not designed to prevent crashes with pedes- trians or cyclists. Its passive safety systems were adequate but a failure to move with the times led to Dacia’s poor performance. According to Michiel van Ratingen, secre-
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