Crash test highlights developing countries' poor safety standards

A car-to-car crash test has demonstrated the huge gulf in automotive safety standards between different countries.

A test between entry-level compact saloons from Mexico and the US resulted in catastrophic damage to the Mexican car, while the American equivalent performed well. The event in Virginia was organised by road safety organisation Global New Car Assessment Program (NCAP), along with Latin NCAP and the US Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. The cars involved were a 2016 Nissan Versa from the US and a 2015 Nissan Tsuru from Mexico.

The Tsuru is based on a design from 1992 and was involved in more than 4,000 deaths between 2007 and 2012. A previous Latin NCAP test awarded it no stars, and this latest test showed why.
After the head-on crash test, with a 50 percent overlap and combined closing speed of 80mph, readings from the cars’ crash test dummies showed that the Tsuru driver would likely have been killed. The driver of the five-star rated Versa – which unlike the Tsuru was fitted with standard airbags – would have suffered relatively minor injuries.

David Ward, secretary general of Global NCAP, said he hoped the test would put more pressure on manufacturers to voluntarily improve the safety of cars globally, and not wait for regulation in each country. “It’s probably the worst result I’ve ever seen in a crash test,” he said.

Nissan were not involved in the supply of vehicles or in the test itself. Ward stressed that the event was not singling out Nissan in particular, and that similar gulfs in safety standards were found around the world from a range of manufacturers. He renewed calls for manufacturers to take their own action, and also to work together and commit to improving global safety standards. “We think all car manufacturers should be actively seeking to cease producing zero star cars in any market in the world,” he said.

“Renault has just launched a Kwid [a compact SUV] in India that doesn’t have airbags as standard and has tested at zero stars. We’re lost for words at why manufacturers are not applying things that they’ve been doing for 20 years in Europe and North America. They say that they’re complying with the laws in that market, but that’s not good enough. They all know how to do this, and while there may be extra cost to fit airbags, they should tell the governments to give fiscal incentives. Governments respond to their lobbying and in other countries that’s been done.”

The United Nations launched the Decade of Action campaign in 2011, supported by 100 countries, to reduce road deaths around the world. Ward said more needs to be done to meet the campaign’s goals by its conclusion in 2020.

“The industry needs to step up to the challenge, to take global initiative and agree collectively that they should be producing vehicles that meet the most basic minimum UN crash standards,” he said. “Back in 2006 the industry agreed a global commitment that all passenger cars would have seatbelts and they did that in response to UN initiative around road safety. Since the UN’s Decade of Action started in 2011, nothing has happened. There hasn’t been any joint initiative by car manufacturers to do anything like that.”