Automobile use across the world is forecast to double over the next ten years. Last year for the first time, sales of light duty vehicles in emerging markets exceeded those of the mature economies. As a result the global market is expanding fastest where the road safety challenge is the greatest. And yet new cars are being sold today in the emerging economies that would fail to pass the United Nations recommended minimum crash test standards.
Latin NCAP, the new crash testing Programme for Latin America, has recently released its second round of results. The vehicles tested by Latin NCAP now cover seven out of the top ten best sellers in Latin America. The results can only be described as disappointing. Major global manufacturers are supplying the region’s market with ‘one star’ vehicles without air bags and poor levels of occupant protection that put motorists and their passengers at risk of life-threatening injuries in a typical frontal collision.
The vehicles tested by Latin NCAP now cover seven out of the top ten best sellers in Latin America. The results can only be described as disappointing.
These cars are providing levels of safety twenty years behind the ‘five star’ standards now common in Europe and North America. Unfortunately in Latin America ‘one star’ cars still dominate the market.
With the launch of the UN Decade of Action for Road Safety 2011-2020, pressure to improve levels of vehicle safety will certainly increase. Already the Global Plan for the Decade recommends that UN Member States apply global crash test standards for front and side impact to all new passenger cars and also encourages the creation of regional new car assessment programmes (NCAPs) to increase availability of consumer information on vehicle safety. Once consumers understand about safety, they tend to then demand it.
This has been the experience where NCAPs have successfully created a ‘market for safety’, stimulating demand for ‘five star’ levels of car safety. In combination, consumer and regulatory action has contributed substantially to the declining level of road deaths in the industrialised countries. Now similar NCAPs are growing in the emerging economies of China, Korea and Latin America and have the potential to make ‘one star’ cars a thing of the past.
NCAPs are growing in the emerging economies of China, Korea and Latin America and have the potential to make ‘one star’ cars a thing of the past.
In response to this trend of automobile globalisation, a fresh initiative has been taken to harness the safety purchasing power of car buyers. The Global New Car Assessment Programme (GNCAP) was launched earlier this year in Washington DC at an event hosted by the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). GNCAP will encourage the development of crash test programmes in the emerging economies by providing technical support and training, whilst also serving as a platform for exchange of best practice and co-operation between existing NCAPs.
GNCAP has already begun to assist the Latin NCAP, and is exploring a pilot project for South East Asia. Next year, it will hold its inaugural annual meeting in Malaysia, attended by NCAPs worldwide. It will launch GNCAP’s annual awards scheme and publish a global buyer’s guide for safer vehicles. In Latin America, the move to improve safety standards has now begun in earnest. With the UN Decade of Action (http://www.decadeofaction.org/), the agenda must now become global.
The opinions expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the positions of Automotive World Ltd.
David Ward is Secretary General of Global NCAP and Director General of the FIA Foundation.
Passenger car safety is one of the key topics to be addressed at Automotive Megatrends USA 2012. For more details, click here.
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