Did you know that the idea of making seat belts mandatory was first raised in the 1930s? It only became widespread decades later.
Today we take it for granted that cars are designed to be safe. But is that always true?
To independently assess the safety performance of cars, several European governments and the European Union created Euro NCAP in 1996. The organization’s goal is to provide reliable information for buyers, support car choice, and ultimately encourage manufacturers to design and build safer cars.
Euro NCAP tests and summarises—in percentages—adult and child occupant protection, the protection of pedestrians and other vulnerable road users, and the vehicle’s safety‑assist systems. The best score is 100% in each category, and the top overall rating is 5 stars.
Crash tests follow a strictly regulated methodology. During the tests, they record the forces acting on the adult dummy and on the child dummy (in a child seat or booster) on the head, neck, chest, abdomen, pelvis and legs. They document different degrees of injury—sometimes injuries incompatible with life.
These are assessed in frontal, side and pole impacts as well. They record airbag deployment, body shell deformation, doors opening, and much more. This information can literally save lives.
They also thoroughly assess the presence and operation of driver‑assistance systems—from seat‑belt reminders to lane keeping, to name just the most basic ones.
Safety results for a specific vehicle type are available in the Instacar app.
Even though we might think that by now every car is similarly safe, unfortunately there are still models that only score weak or average. When buying a used car, it’s worth paying attention to this too.
Safety ratings are not available for every license plate lookup and may only be available for cars made after 2009.