Prioritising
Safety: ANCAP
A new series that explores some of the exciting changes ANCAP
is introducing to its vehicle testing to ensure safer vehicles and to
significantly reduce road trauma.
WORDS BY DANIEL BRAID
R
oad safety is something we all continue to
talk about within the fleet industry. Driving
a vehicle is not just about getting someone
from A to B anymore, it is about ensuring people
always go home safely and feel safe within a
vehicle. Over the years, road safety has improved
in many ways thanks to the development of
sensational technology advancements within
vehicles, a commitment to improved driver
awareness and broadened testing of new vehicles
to ensure safety is prioritised.
It has taken time to reach this point, but the
proof really is in the data. In the last 20 years the
annual rate of fatalities per 100,000 Australians
has halved from 9.49 to 4.60 – a number not to
be sneezed at. Consider that in 1970 over 3,798
Australians lost their lives as a result of road
trauma when the population was less than 13
million, while last year 1,194 lives were lost from
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ISSUE 22 2020 / WWW.AFMA.ORG.AU
25 million and things become clear – inroads are
being made.
While we recognise that no lives lost is the ultimate
aim, achieving that goal is sometimes a harder
step to attain than we might realise. But the reality
is simple – if we all start driving newer and safer
cars we’re certainly going to get there a whole lot
quicker than keeping older ones on the roads.
So what exactly determines a safer vehicle? Safety
features are important for sure, and it is up to
the fleet buyer or private buyer to prioritise these
when selecting their next vehicle purchase. Central
to making these judgements simpler to make is
from the work ANCAP SAFETY (the Australasian
New Car Assessment Program) is doing with its
ongoing independent safety ratings tests.
ANCAP safety ratings are published for a range
of new passenger, sports utility (SUV) and light