Euro NCAP has released official information on the latest cars tested for safety at their facility. Euro NCAP, that is the European New Car Assessment Programme, is an organization in Europe that crash tests all the cars in the European market and gives them a rating from 1 star to 5 stars according to their performance. Fifteen of the latest cars in the market were tested, including the Skoda Rapid, Ford Fiesta, Dacia Lodgy, Volkswagen Golf 7, 2013 Range Rover, new Hyundai Santa Fe, etc.
According to the tests, Renault subsidiary, Dacia had the worst score for their new model, the Lodgy of just 3 stars. During the crash test, the car suffered quite a lot of damage in the passenger cabin and in a real life situation would have resulted in severe injuries to occupants. Also it scored low on pedestrian safety as well as child safety, in spite of being a family car. This echoed the slightly low budget engineering of Dacia cars, as another small from the company, the Sandero, scored a dismal 1 star in the South American NCAP test.
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Almost all the rest of the cars tested were awarded 5 star rating for safety. Latest versions of the Volkswagen Golf and Ford Fiesta fared pretty well on safety plus were specially awarded for many driver safety assistance features as standard on all variants. They typically include emergency braking assist and superior occupant protection features. The Fiesta has a special feature where certain safety assist feature can be customized by the user like speed limits, seat belts reminders etc.
he big fish in the pond was the new Mercedes A-class which has safety features from the flagship S-class like Collision prevention and Attention assist as standard. Among the more expensive cars, the 2013 Range Rover as well as the Volvo V60 Plug In Hybrid scored 5 stars. Despite this. the manufacturers will make the car even more safe by adding more features in areas where there still is room for improvement.
Euro NCAP also urged the European costumer to think about safety first when choosing a car. They have also urged car manufacturers to give all the safety features as standard on even their cheapest cars to make roads much safer than what they are currently.
