Does a cars safety rating matter to you?

EPM

Not that I would every consider buying one but I have to say I'm very suprised by the Urban Cruisers mediocre crash test performance. For a company that is resource rich, has made 5 star cars in the past and gives the impression of actively seeking to improve the safety of their vehicles surely it's all the more suprising. It does reasonably well in all aspects bar adult protection which to me should be priority.

So how important is safety to you when buying a car? I for one have never bought a car based on the number of airbags and the like it has. I dont think I know of anyone that makes an issue of this when buying either.

Owen

No

Hugely important! My MINI has a 4 star rating but additionally has head airbags fitted, and 6 piston 320mm drilled and slotted brakes - the Rover 75 has 4 stars aswell.

Cosmo K

No

Yep, its very important for me as well.

Mr. Presentable

No

Yes, my child will be in it!

alexmcred

No

Very my kids will be in it also for myself as I'll be in it most times

kdevitt

Never thought about it

Couldn't care in the slighest bit!

Cookie_Monster

Never thought about it

Way down the list after comfort, looks, performance, handling, mileage + FSH(2nd hand), colour.

To be honest the basic standard in most mid to large new cars is perfectly acceptable to me.

W.Shakes-Beer

No

It does to me. My car has a 4 star rating but when I'm out sometimes with a friend of mine who has an old clio I realise how little it has safety wise.

fonda

No

It does matter, but wouldnt be the most important decision when picking a car!

Mr.David

No

Yes, but not just from an NCAP perspective. I think personally that stability control is more important than pedestrian impact rating!

Only joking, but my point is that passive safety is as important as active safety i.e. how does the car handle? how does it react on/past the limit? what is the braking performance like? does it have stability control?

All these things that are not covered by NCAP are crucial. Why have an accident in the first place if it can be avoided?

Cionád

No

Mine has a 'one and a crossed-star' rating from NCAP, and had a seatbelt failure in the test which resulted in a recall... :eek:

I'll be getting something with 3 star absolute minimum next!

GavRedKing

Don't think about TBH, but then again I don't carry kids around in it. It would be important though but it would not be high up on my list at the moment.

Anan1

No

My Forester was never tested by the NCAP, but I did check US results and they're good. Maybe i'm a little gullible, but this also impressed me: http://forum.ih8mud.com/chit-chat-section/82685-why-jaws-life-will-never-work-subaru.html

Owen

No

Stability Control is about to become mandatory equipment in vehicles sold in the EU shortly.

Tipsy Mac

No

I would look for above average, wouldnt get a deathtrap.

colm_mcm

Never thought about it

The Urban Cruiser has front, side, knee and curtain airbags standard, it also has VSC and traction control standard. It's baffling that it only got 3, I'm sure the car will be retested and achieve the 5 star rating Toyota engineered it to have.

glaston

No

Stability control is essential imo.
Check out the vid, old but good.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K3m24bjkfg0

Cookie_Monster

Never thought about it

glaston wrote: »

Stability control is essential imo.

How come we've gotten on without it for 100 years then?

EPM

colm_mcm wrote: »

The Urban Cruiser has front, side, knee and curtain airbags standard, it also has VSC and traction control standard. It's baffling that it only got 3, I'm sure the car will be retested and achieve the 5 star rating Toyota engineered it to have.

Really is considering the safety kit. I am sure it will on a restest though. But no doubt there will be subtle changes made to achieve this if it couldn't do it from the off.

EPM

Cookie_Monster wrote: »

How come we've gotten on without it for 100 years then?

Too many people haven't...

Mr.David

No

EPM wrote: »

Too many people haven't...

Exactly. It could potentially halve the amount of crashes that occur.

Saying we survived without it for 100 years is a bit silly. We survived without the seatbelt, airbag and ABS too didnt we?

Cookie_Monster

Never thought about it

Mr.David wrote: »

Exactly. It could potentially halve the amount of crashes that occur.

Saying we survived without it for 100 years is a bit silly. We survived without the seatbelt, airbag and ABS too didnt we?

saying its essential is a bit silly.

Its desirable and soon to be legal but not essential to making a car.

Mr.David

No

Cookie_Monster wrote: »

saying its essential is a bit silly.

Its desirable and soon to be legal but not essential to making a car.

Of course its not essential - very little is really. No crash structure or passenger protection is essential - but its very desirable!

My original point was, given a choice between an NCAP 5 star without ESP and an NCAP 4 star with ESP I know which I'd choose....

glaston

No

Cookie_Monster wrote: »

saying its essential is a bit silly.

Its desirable and soon to be legal but not essential to making a car.

Hence the imo, meaning for me its essential.

Mr Benevolent

No

I won't be buying a car below a 4 Star and with as many airbags as possible.

Berty

Never thought about it

I dont look at the NCAP rating when I go looking for cars.

I look for:

ABS
ASP / Traction Control
Driver / Passenger Airbags
Side Impact Airbags / Curtain Airbags

I do not have kids so my priorities are different. Just myself and the missus.

CarMuppet

No

For me, for the first 14 years of my legal driving life no, safety was not important.. as long as the car was light & powerful... and modifed... *cringe*

...cliche coming up here; but since having kids that has changed to a resounding yes.... but still like a bit of go in a family everyday car so my 159ti ticks all the boxes as a family car for us

Cheers,
CarMuppet

Mr.David

No

CarMuppet wrote: »

...cliche coming up here; but since having kids that has changed to a resounding yes.... but still like a bit of go in a family everyday car so my 159ti ticks all the boxes as a family car for us

Cheers,
CarMuppet

The 159 is the safest car in the world..............................
.............because it spends its time in the workshop :P


Only joking, big Alfa fan would love a 159 myself!

I never thought about it really. I have to say a bad rating wouldn't put me off a car though. Performance(including handling and brakes) and looks would be the most important then reliability. ABS is the most thing I would look out for as it is essential. I have traction control but turn it off half the time so I wouldn't say its essential for me however I think it has to be there for RWD cars as a lot are being driven by people who are not versed in controlling the rear.

The E46 3 series got 4 stars actually didn't think it would do that well. One star for pedestrians but they shouldn't be on the road to get hit in the first place so that does not concern me in the least.

Matt Simis

No

I look at NCAP for every car I buy and check out safety features. It doesnt drive my purchase (unless its lethal) but something I always check out.

'We are currently investigating the Euro NCAP result in detail, in order to understand why there is a difference between our Toyota assessment and Euro NCAP's rating.
Together with other car makers, we are also discussing with Euro NCAP certain aspects of their evaluation methodology, which might also explain why the rating is lower than we expected.

Rich coming from a company just after recalling 4million cars in the US after fears (102 reports) of uncontrollable acceleration became a reality for one unfortunate family.

robbie99

No

Anything less then 4 or 5 stars in a new or nearly new car is unacceptable imo.

EPM

Interesting that 30% of us at the moment dont think about it or it doesn't bother us

alias no.9

It's just a test, higher scoring cars perform better under test conditions, that's all. In the absence of a better test it's a useful comparison between different models. I remember seeing an add for the Kia Sedona in the US in which they boasted about it's crash safety. I thought it was a joke because it had a terrible EuroNCAP rating, but it had an excellent rating in the US test. That doesn't make the US test any worse than the EuroNCAP, just different. The problem with these tests is that manufacturers goal is a top test result rather that safety, they're similar goals but not exactly the same. Cars that can do well in both EuroNCAP and US crash testing are probably safer than cars that excel in one but are **** in the other.

Owen

No

EPM wrote: »

Interesting that 30% of us at the moment dont think about it or it doesn't bother us

There's an assumption that if it's modern, and big, that it must be safe. Remember Top Gear showing people the Freelander after it had been crashed? Everyone assumed it'd be a fine car, but it turned out if had only a 3 star rating, and the front wheel ended up pushing into the cabin space.

America's famous for it. Their Ford F150 pickup truck is a serious POS when it comes to safety, and the safety authorities over there to highlight it, compared it to a MINI in the same crash test. Here's the result :

biko

No

What can I tell you? I drive a Volvo...
Ratings

Blazer

No

Very important to me especially the pedestrian protection rating.
I try and get a car with the lowest rating so I can maximize the injuries I do to those fúckers..:D

Johnny Utah

No

Yes, and I always ensure that I have good quality tyres on my car. I'm amazed at the number of people who skimp on cheap tyres- madness!

2 Espressi

Never thought about it

Depends on the car. Definitely not with the MX5, where the list of safety features it doesn't have (ABS, airbags, pedestrian friendly headlights, roof) is longer than the list of what it has (pretensioning seatbelts, erm that's about it.).

I suppose if I was buying a family wagon I'd think about it again.

TeaServer

The safety rating does matter to me, however I didn't think about it when buying my current car.

I wonder would many car salesmen know the NCAP ratings of their cars were I to ask them when buying (especially older second hand cars)? My guess is that they probably would not know it. Check any car ad on car-zone and chances are you wont see the NCAP rating in the sales blurb.

I think car safety rating is important to drivers/passengers but is overlooked by buyers/sellers.

/T

BrianD3

alias no.9 wrote: »

It's just a test, higher scoring cars perform better under test conditions, that's all. In the absence of a better test it's a useful comparison between different models. I remember seeing an add for the Kia Sedona in the US in which they boasted about it's crash safety. I thought it was a joke because it had a terrible EuroNCAP rating, but it had an excellent rating in the US test. That doesn't make the US test any worse than the EuroNCAP, just different. The problem with these tests is that manufacturers goal is a top test result rather that safety, they're similar goals but not exactly the same. Cars that can do well in both EuroNCAP and US crash testing are probably safer than cars that excel in one but are **** in the other.

It is generally accepted that the US NCAP (NHTSA) frontal test using the full width of the car is an outdated and inferior test of a cars safety in a frontal collision. There is no chance that a car that does well in the EuroNCAP frontal test will do badly in the US NCAP frontal test. However a car that does well in the US test could do badly in the European one.

Now the US IIHS test is an offset test like EuroNCAP and the results for any car should be similar in both tests with EuroNCAP being harder to do well in.

The side impact tests are harder to compare as the both US tests use a very different barrier and/or protocol to EuroNCAP's side impact test.

You are right that these are tests under controlled conditions and there are no guarantees when it comes to real world safety. However there is still plenty of evidence to suggest that modern NCAP tested cars are a lot safer than older cars and that there is correlation between NCAP ratings and injury in actual crashes
http://www.euroncap.com/files/swedish_study---17536047-34e9-4a97-a5a4-024dee5fdd31.doc