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Correlation of Vehicle Performance in the New Car Assessment Program With Fatality Risk in Actual Head-On Collisions
Technical Paper
946150
Sector:
Language:
English
Abstract
The New Car Assessment Program (NCAP) has gauged the performance
of vehicles in frontal impact tests since model year 1979. NCAP
test speeds and impact locations that closely resemble the
conditions in a large proportion of actual frontal crashes that
result in fatalities or serious injuries. The relationship between
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. There were 396 collisions (792 cars) in
which both cars were identical with or very similar to vehicles
which had been tested in NCAP. In the analyses, adjustments were
made for the relative weights of the cars, and for the age and sex
of the drivers.
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.