Flawed methodology in SA cars’ safety ratings

A car can look safe on paper, but there’s only one way to know for sure how its passengers will fare in an impact and that’s to crash-test it.

Motorists in developed countries know this and cars’ NCAP — New Car Assessment Programme — safety rating is a major factor in car shopping.

Five stars is best and a one-star car shouldn’t be on the market, according to the Global NCAP organisation.

But how many SA car shoppers ask about a car’s NCAP safety rating?

Very few, and here’s why — only 12 vehicles have been crash-tested in the #SaferCarsforAfrica collaboration between Global NCAP and the AA, which was launched in 2017.

It’s an expensive exercise — cars are bought off showroom floors, then shipped to Germany for crash-testing at a specialised facility near Munich.

Two cars scored zero safety stars (the Nissan MP300 and the Chery QQ3, which is no longer sold in SA) and the highest score was an “acceptable” three stars.

Despite so few entry-level cars on sale in SA having been crash-tested, when the AA recently compared 27 cars (selling for less than R200,000) in terms of safety, it awarded extra points to those which had been crash-tested: five points per star.

The rest of the points were awarded on the basis of “on-paper” safety spec —  airbags, ABS and electronic stability control.

The Datsun Go+, which scored a dismal one-star rating in its NCAP crash test, got five points, while the majority of cars in the sample, which have not been crash-tested, got zero.

The Peugeot 108 and VW Up! took first and second place despite scoring zero in the crash-test rating, but five crash-tested cars placed in the top 10 out of 27 cars, thanks mainly to extra points for having been crash-tested.

That prompted howls of “unfair!”, “misleading” and “flawed methodology” from some manufacturers.

Hyundai Automotive SA says awarding points for crash-test results when only five out of 27 cars had been crash-tested heavily skewed the findings.

Suzuki Auto SA is also unimpressed.

“The report does not consider the structural integrity of the driver/passenger compartment but only whether the vehicles are equipped with features such as ABS, stability control and airbags,” marketing manager Brendon Carpenter said.

“The positive scoring for vehicles that were tested in relation to those that weren’t tested under the #SaferCarsForAfrica programme makes for unfair comparison.”

The Suzuki Ignis, tested in the #SaferCarsForAfrica programme in 2019, scoring three safety stars — and thus awarded 15 extra points by the AA, emerged as fifth-safest entry-level car in the survey.

But its Swift hatchback, which has not been crash-tested and scored 0 for crash testing, placed 15th.

The AA and Global NCAP responded: “We’d like to see the manufacturers beating down the AA’s door — as Global NCAP’s partner — to ask us to crash-test their vehicles so their safety can be verified for the local market.

Carpenter said: “We have not given it much thought because we haven’t been requested or invited to participate.

“Only once invited will we consider our participation, since our assumption is that the logistics costs (shipping to Germany, crash-test booking costs, scrapping, and so on) will probably be more than the cost of the vehicle, and we are unsure whether that will be borne by the OEM, Global NCAP or the AA.”

The costs would be borne by Suzuki’s global headquarters in Japan, Global NCAP vice-president for technological affairs Alejandro Furas said.

“Dividing the cost of tests over the units sold in a year, the costs are small, especially considering all the markets where the model is sold,” Furas said.

South Africans couldn’t assume a good safety rating obtained by a car in, say, Europe, applied to what appeared to be the same car sold in SA, Furas said.

“South Africans deserve to have clear independent safety performance information about the cars that they want to buy.”

But if South Africans buying entry-level cars don’t care enough about safety ratings, they won’t raise the issue with manufacturers, and as long as they think we aren’t basing our buying decisions on safety ratings, they won’t have sufficient incentive to sponsor a crash test.

We teach people — and companies — how to treat us.

GET IN TOUCH: Contact Wendy Knowler for advice with your consumer issues via e-mail at consumer@knowler.co.za or on Twitter @wendyknowler.