New cars offer 'woeful' safety to pedestrians
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Your support makes all the difference.New cars provide "woeful" protection for pedestrians, despite years of safety campaigning, according to crash test results released yesterday.
Only one in 15 new cars tested offered more than the basic protection in the Europe-wide tests. Safety features on new Range Rover, Jaguar and Vauxhall models were rated "dire". All the manufacturers received high ratings for safety features for drivers and passengers but only Honda did well on safeguards for pedestrians.
The RAC Foundation, which did the European New Car Assessment Programme (Euro NCAP) tests, said car makers were not taking pedestrian safety seriously and were in danger of sacrificing lives for design.
Campaigners have been calling for manufacturers to drop angular features, jutting headlamps and uncovered windscreen wipers – and demanding cushioned bumpers as standard to help to cut the annual death toll. Last year, 857 pedestrians were killed on Britain's roads – more than two a day.
The Society of Motor Manufacturers and Trades insisted real progress would only be made by installing road features that separated pedestrians from cars, and by educating pedestrians and drivers.
The Euro NCAP tests awarded five stars for the highest level of pedestrian safety and one star for the lowest. The Honda CR-V, which received three stars, was the only model to be awarded more than one. Models were also given percentage ratings, and the Honda got 53 per cent compared with 6 per cent for the Range Rover 2002 five-door off-roader, the Vauxhall Frontera and the Jaguar X-type.
Edmund King, the RAC Foundation's executive director, said: "If these tests were new, you could say car manufacturers had not yet adapted to them but they have been going for five years so you would expect brand new models to show evidence that pedestrian safety was being taken more seriously."
A spokesman for the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders accused the RAC Foundation of making a "cheap shot" when car firms were spending billions on researching pedestrian safety features.
"It is not possible to put a feather bed on the front of a vehicle so that when a pedestrian comes into contact with it they walk away with no injuries," he said.
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