Citation

Kahane CJ, Hackney JR, Berkowitz AM. Proc. Int. Tech. Conf. Enhanced Safety Vehicles 1995; 1995: 1388-1404.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1995, In public domain, Publisher National Highway Traffic Safety Administration)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

The relationship between the New Car Assessment Program (NCAP) test scores and actual fatality risk on the road was studied. Head-on collisions between two 1979-91 passenger cars in which both drivers wore safety belts were selected from the 1978-92 Fatal Accident Reporting System (FARS). There were 396 collisions (792 cars) in which both cars were identical with or very similar to vehicles which had been tested in NCAP. There are statistically significant correlations between NCAP scores for head injury, chest acceleration and femur loading and the actual fatality risk of belted drivers. In a head-on collision between a car with good NCAP score and a car of equal weight with a poor score, the driver of the car with the better NCAP score has, on average, a 15 to 25 percent lower risk of fatal injury. Cars built from 1979 through 1982 had, on the average, the poorest NCAP scores. Test performance improved substantially from 1983 onwards. In parallel, fatality risk for belted drivers in actual head-on collisions decreased by 20 to 25 percent in model years 1979-91, with the largest decreases just after 1982. The paper concludes with a survey of possible future goals for NCAP.