11:27 am, July 13, 2023
Nearly half of new car buyers don’t know what their current car’s Euro NCAP safety rating is.
That’s according to research published today by What Car? which found that 49.5 per cent of the 887 in-market buyers it polled said they were clueless when it came to how safe their vehicle was.
It also found that a tenth of them weren’t even aware what a Euro NCAP safety rating was.
However, the study discovered that 43.5 per cent wouldn’t consider a car that had fewer than four Euro NCAP safety stars and just 16.4 per cent of buyers would consider a car with three stars.
Worryingly, though, 3.5 per cent said they’d be happy about buying a car that didn’t have ANY safety star ratings, and of those who were aware of the safety ratings, 13 per cent said they weren’t important.
Meanwhile, 29.4 per cent stated that the safety rating was very important when considering buying a car.
What Car? also asked what safety technologies buyers would want as standard in their next car.
More than half (53.3 per cent) said automatic headlights and 48.4 per cent wanted blind spot warnings.
Automatic emergency braking was cited by 43 per cent, and more than a third (34.8 per cent) considered lane departure warnings important for their next car.
In 2020, Euro NCAP toughened up its safety tests, which look at a vehicle’s crash protection as well as its active safety systems, such as automatic emergency braking, lane-keep assist and other features for a combined rating.
Cars that don’t have active safety systems can score poorly in the new format despite high scores in crash testing.
What Car? editor Steve Huntingford said: ‘Design and performance will often be important things to consider when buying a car.
‘However, while some people value safety, many others seem to be in the dark about how safe their cars are.
‘Perhaps this is because there is an incorrect assumption that all modern cars are similarly safe, so prospective buyers need to be mindful of this.’
Pictured being tested by Euro NCAP is the 2022 MG4 EV, which achieved the top safety rating of five stars
