Pedestrian protection in vehicle impacts: further results from the Australian new car assessment program

Since the year 2000, The Centre for Automotive Safety Research has been carrying out the pedestrian component of the Australian New Car Assessment Program (ANCAP), to evaluate the level of protection offered to pedestrians by new cars. The assessment uses sub-system tests that simulate the impact between a motor vehicle and the head, upper leg, knee and lower leg of a pedestrian. Until 2002 these tests were conducted to a EuroNCAP protocol consistent with EEVC WG10 procedures. The results of these 19 tests have been presented previously. Since 2002, ANCAP has adopted the revised EuroNCAP protocol, which is based on the EEVC WG17 procedures. The revised protocol uses more stringent assessment criteria. Eighteen vehicles have been tested to the new protocol to date. This paper will outline differences between the old and new protocols and present results from the most recent ANCAP pedestrian safety assessments. (a) For the covering entry of this conference, please see ITRD abstract no. E211985.