Earlier this year, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration announced that it would be revising its well known five-star crash test rating system for 2011 model year vehicles. This new series of tests, called the New Car Assessment Program (NCAP) makes it more difficult for manufacturers' vehicles to achieve the administration's prestigious five-star safety rating, which they had been doing a bit too easily in recent years. Also, the latest round of new safety technologies – collision warning, lane departure warning, etc. – are now being tested, and a new pole side crash test has been added to the gauntlet that also includes old favorites like the frontal barrier, side barrier and rollover tests. Finally, NCAP gives vehicles an overall rating that combines their star ratings in each of the three major categories (front, side and rollover), which makes marketing the results much easier for automakers whose vehicles score well.
Since the announcement earlier this year, NHTSA has been busy testing some 30 vehicles using NCAP and released its results this morning. The full results are available, but it should be noted that these new ratings are not comparable with ratings for any 2010-11 model year vehicles rated using the old system.
