No one can be blasé about car safety. In 2004, over 500 fatalities were reported
on NSW roads, many of which could have been prevented or reduced in severity
had drivers been in a safer vehicle. So how safe is your car? Emily Bridges
shows you how to find out.

What are Used Car Safety Ratings?

You are five times as likely to be seriously injured or killed in a car that is less protective than you are in a car ranked the safest, according to crash statistics analysed and collated by Monash University Accident Research Centre (MUARC). But how do you know how safe your car is, especially if it’s second-hand? NRMA’s Used Car Safety Ratings (UCSR) (PDF556KB/1 page) and PDF131KB/1page help you determine how safe your car is and the safest model vehicle to buy that suits your needs. And by buying a safer car, you influence importers and dealers to buy and promote safer vehicles.

How are the ratings determined?

The UCSR are based on crash records from over one million tow-away crashes that occurred in Victoria, NSW, Queensland and Western Australia between 1987 and 2002.

The ratings were calculated according to two criteria. First, by how much the vehicle was likely to protect the driver in a crash (crashworthiness) and, second, by how badly the vehicle is likely to hurt another driver in a crash (aggressivity).

The results don’t take into account the impact on other passengers or how the vehicle was being driven at the time of the crash.

Crashworthiness The level of protection your vehicle offers you in a crash is known as crashworthiness. It’s influenced by the structural design of the vehicle body, fitment of safety features such as airbags, seat belt design and how well padded the vehicle’s interior is, and is rated according to how much better or worse a car is in relation  to the vehicle average.

Aggressivity If your vehicle collides with another it can contribute to the risk of injury to the driver of the other vehicle. This is known as aggressivity. Physical factors such as vehicle mass, body stiffness and geometry (i.e. bonnet height) influence aggressivity, which is rated as follows: