Little cars light on safety
BY MIKE COSTELLO | 28th Jul 2011
The 2011 Used Car Safety Ratings – supported by both state and federal governments as well as organisations such as the RACV, NRMA and RACQ – used police crash reports to give safety ratings for 184 of Australia’s most popular vehicles made between 1996 and 2009.
Twenty-one popular light-sized cars were included in the test, with none managing better than three stars out of five. Previous-generation Mazda2, Honda Jazz, Suzuki Swift and Holden Barina models, as well as the Toyota Yaris, were the best of a bad bunch.
Interestingly, the previous European-sourced Holden Barina outperformed the current Korean-made TK model, which managed two stars. The Hyundai Getz, which regularly leads the segment for sales, achieved just one star.
Other one-star cars included the first-generation Holden Cruze crossover, the previous Hyundai Accent, Ford's Festiva, the Daewoo Lanos and Tacuma, and Daihatsu's Terios, Sirion and Cuore.
No large passenger car received worse than two stars, while the worst result for any vehicle in either the medium or large SUV segments was three stars, underlining the point that size matters – at least in multi-vehicle collisions.
The study partly linked its findings to the fact that occupants of heavier vehicles in real-world two-vehicle crashes typically fare better than those in lighter vehicles.
It also stipulated that occupant protection in light cars has improved significantly in the years since the study’s 2009 cut-off, with several now scoring five star ANCAP ratings.
As part of the study, Monash University’s Accident Research Centre (MUARC) analysed records from more than four million police-reported road crashes in Australia and New Zealand between 1996 and 2009.
Factors such as driver gender and age, type of road user involved, crash configuration and year and location of crash were taken in to account.
Unsurprisingly, the findings indicated that newer models provided their drivers with better protection from injury in a crash, due to improvements on better structural designs and more active and passive safety equipment.
Despite this, the best performing vehicles were not necessarily those with the best new-car crash ratings, because these new-car tests (such as ANCAP) are done in controlled laboratory settings and do not take into account differences of weight in a collision.
While new car safety ratings are not designed to be compared among vehicles in vastly different size categories, the used car safety ratings can be compared across all categories as they are derived from reports of actual road crashes and therefore take this into account.
The updated 2011 list also awarded an additional ‘safe pick’ rating to those vehicles that have been found to cause lower injuries to unprotected road user such as pedestrians, cyclists and motorcyclists. Of the 38 cars awarded the maximum five star score, nineteen were also awarded the ‘safe pick’ tick of approval.
These include the locally-made Ford FG Falcon and Toyota Camry, as well as top-sellers like the Volkswagen Golf, Subaru Forester, Mitsubishi Triton, Mazda6 and Ford Transit.
| 2011 Used Car SafetyRatings five-star cars:  |
| Smallcars |
| Honda Civic (2006-09) Safe pick            |
| Peugeot 307 (2001-09)  Safe pick |
| Volvo S40/ V40(1997-2004)  Safe pick |
| Volkswagen Golf/ Bora(1999-2004)  Safe pick |
| Volkswagen Golf /Jetta(2004-09)  Safe pick |
| Mediumcars |
| BMW 5 Series(1996-2003)  Safe pick |
| Mazda6(2002-07)  Safe pick |
| Honda Accord (2003-07)  Safe pick |
| Saab 900/ 9-3 (1994-2002)  Safe pick |
| Saab 9000 (1986-1997)  Safe pick |
| Subaru Liberty/ Outback (2003-09) |
| Honda Accord (1999-2002) |
| Honda Prelude (1997-2002) |
| Large cars |
| Ford Falcon FG (2008-09)  Safe pick |
| Toyota Camry (2006-09)  Safe pick |
| Mitsubishi Magna/ Verada(2003-05)  |
| Mercedes-Benz E-class (1996-2002) |
| People-movers |
| Kia Carnival (1999-2006) |
| Honda Odyssey (1995-2000) |
| Toyota Tarago (2000-06) |
| Commercials |
| Ford Transit (2001-07) Safe pick |
| Volkswagen Caravelle/ Transporter(1995-04) |
| Mitsubishi Triton (2006-09) Safe pick |
| Ford Ranger/ Mazda BT-50 (2006-09)Safepick |
| Mitsubishi Trition (1996-2006) |
| Nissan Navara (2005-09) |
| Toyota HiLux (2005-09) |
| Compact SUVs |
| Honda CR-V (2002-06) Safe pick |
| Subaru Forester (2002-08) Safe pick |
| Toyota RAV4 (2009-09) |
| Medium SUVs |
| Mitsubishi Pajero (2000-06) Safe pick |
| Ford Territory (2004-09) |
| Nissan Pathfinder (1995-2005) |
| Toyota Prado (1996-2003) |
| Toyota Prado (2003-09) |
| Large SUVs |
| Jeep Grand Cherokee (1999-2005) Safe pick |
| Land Rover Discovery (1991-2002) |
| Nissan Patrol (1998-2009) |
