INGENIEUR
ASEAN NCAP – New Car
Assessment Programme
By Khairul Anwar Abu Kassim
Hyundai EON crash test
F
rom a road safety point of view, every
measure and countermeasure must be
treated as equally important although in
reality it may not be true; even with accompanying
statistical evidence. For example, the fitment
of passive safety items such as airbags and
seatbelts may help reduce the severity of injury
but in real-world studies, it is shown that vehicle
occupants still ignore seatbelts which then makes
airbags useless. Such a scenario is deemed to
be the “human factor” as the option to be safe is
available.
However, the above situation should not
undermine efforts to promote the fitment of
airbags as a standard item in cars. Similar
arguments may be applied to the rest of the
vehicle safety equipment, since every small effort
to upgrade the “minimum” requirement will bring
significant results in the long run. These must also
be followed by effective and consistent advocacies
and enforcement efforts. The human factor is
complicated and difficult to solve in an objective
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manner as it requires a change in attitude. The
solution to raise the bar of the “minimum” safety
standard for cars can be achieved through the
New Car Assessment Programme (NCAP). Previous
efforts have mostly focused on establishing and
strengthening the car industry in the country,
so hopefully the introduction of NCAP may be
regarded as a new paradigm in the country’s
automotive layout.
NCAP can be the catalyst to raise the
“minimum” car safety standard in the country,
or plainly described as “politically acceptable”
by Mooren et al (2011) if the status quo remains
disadvantageous to the road users. Many fatalities
occur not because of driver error but because of
a combination of driver error, negligently designed
road systems and politically acceptable but
technically substandard vehicles.
The main purpose of the NCAP and other
automobile safety rating programmes is to set
a standard above Vehicle Type Approval (VTA) to
exclusively ensure that safety is not compromised