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Got a car? Getting a car? Then you really need to check this list....

We're The Great Old Ones Now

07:12 / 20.08.03

EuroNCAP tests are those dramatic smashes with the dummies you see in slow motion and don't really think about.

The practicality is that cars with four and five stars escape from a crash at thirty to forty mph (relative speed) without much cabin deformation. A car with two gets squished up inside, your head hits the steering wheel and your legs get hit by the pedals and the seat moves around so that you may get trapped under the wheel and dash.

Three's as low as you want to go. You might feel okay continuing to drive a car with a three star rating, but you probably don't want to buy one if you can get a car with a higher rating for a similar price - and that's more than likely; it's no longer a question of expensive cars having better protection, or even larger cars automatically scoring higher. The Landrover Freelander gets a terrifying two, as opposed to the Fiat Punto (1999 onwards), which gets four.

This has been a public service announcement triggered by watching a comparison of NCAP-rated cars in the aftermath of a smash. It was sobering.

Tryphena Absent

07:36 / 20.08.03

Yay I'm going to kill a pedestrian but I won't die!

We're The Great Old Ones Now

08:12 / 20.08.03

I have to admit, the pedestrian stuff is a little upsetting. Most of the cars get low, low pedestrian safety ratings. My car gets a four-star rating for me and a one-star for pedestrians, which is, er, bad, but not unusual.

I also have to admit that it really was a secondary thing for me. I was just amazingly relieved that I wasn't utterly bongoed myself - and smug that I payed the extra ninety quid for head airbags, which appears to be the smart move after all...

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

08:41 / 20.08.03

A Beetle gets four... but I think that's the crap new ones. Mine's an old 1970 1302S, and they're not on there... I'm scared now.

09:05 / 20.08.03

Having been in a couple of prangs myself, I can say that these factors have insignificant weight in your chances of "arriving alive" when you compare them against the most important safety device installed in all cars, just a few inches to one side of the head airbag.

Seriously, rattling along in a steel box on wheels is never safe for anyone. Beware risk compensation. And ask yourself why there are no figures for 70 mph crashes.

We're The Great Old Ones Now

15:00 / 20.08.03

Well, duh.

But a prang at a relative velocity of forty is like a domestic accident - it's an all-too-plausible possibility, and there might be nothing you could have done about it. Driving a car with a decent NCAP rating means getting out of your car and feeling like a tit. Driving a car with a rating of two or fewer means being cut out and possibly leaving a few bits behind.

Entirely up to you, of course - but I'd say it was the judicious application of the brain to the issues of risk.

19:05 / 20.08.03

The Mitsu Lancer does very poorly. I can only imagine it's worse for the Evo. Do you not have Evos in Europe?

19:16 / 20.08.03

Well, I wish I had your faith in technology and laboratory testing. I think you likely were protected to some extent by your car's design. But mostly I think you just got lucky, like I did, in old bangers at relative velocities of well over 40 mph, twice.

Take it easy. :-)

Cloned Christ on a HoverDonkey

22:36 / 20.08.03

The thing is, how do you protect pedestrians in the event of a collision?

Cars are big, heavy, hard things that tend to travel quite quickly; there's a lot of energy that's going to be involved in the collision, no matter what car is hitting you. It's obviously going to be a lot easier protecting the passengers, what with them being encased in steel and everything.

Pedestrian protection is obviously going to be a hard nut to crack. Make the front end softer and more energy absorbent and then I would have thought you're increasing the risk to the passengers.

It's a tricky one.

00:14 / 21.08.03

I remember seeing testing being done regarding passenger testing before... some sort of deployable outside airbag system. Still didn't seem that it was all that promising though, considering all of the variables and the lack of protection around the pedestrian.

And as far as an ol' beetle goes, unless you get a roll cage and some five pt seat belts, there really nothing between you and the outside world in an accident. The engine in the back doesn't offer anything between you and a head-on collision. Not sure if that hurts the charm though...

10:56 / 21.08.03

The engine in the back doesn't offer anything between you and a head-on collision. Not sure if that hurts the charm though...

And you've got the petrol tank in the front, and the old-fashioned, not-very-collapsible steering column, just to up the ante! But maybe the threat of being kebabed will help keep you focused on the task in hand and the rear engine will slow down the "indestructible" car barrelling along behind you :-)

11:49 / 21.08.03

What a surprise... 1975 Renault 16 not on the list.
It's made of melted down Eiffel Tower leftovers... deformation? What's that?

05:04 / 22.08.03

The Renault 16 - what a great car! I wish I'd bought one when I had the chance. They were very trendy among my peers back in the early 80s. I had one friend who was a total Renault geek, always buying old Renaults, pulling them to pieces and putting them back together again. He always had at least a couple of spare Renaults that were available to buy, but he also seemed to have a disturbing number of "unnecessary" parts left over when he put them back together...