On The Safe Side
The Age
Saturday July 26, 2008
IF SOMEONE offered you a used car for $10,000 with sports wheels, leather seats and a six-stacker CD, or one without any of the extras for $15,000, but in which you were nine times more likely to survive a serious accident, which one would you choose?
It sounds like a no-brainer but RACV chief engineer of vehicles Michael Case says vehicle safety still ranks as "less sexy" than factors such as comfort, fuel consumption or mileage for many consumers.His comments follow the release this week of the latest version of the Used Car Safety Ratings, a buyers' guide to the safety levels and crashworthiness of 349 popular models to be found in any used car yard in Australia.The table here lists the findings, compiled after the Monash University Accident Research Centre (MUARC) looked at more than 3.2 million crashes to determine safety ratings - both for vehicle occupants and other road users - of Australia's used-car fleet.With used cars making up six out of every seven vehicles bought in Australia, the coalition of road safety bodies behind the guide - including the RACV, VicRoads, Transport Accident Commission and MUARC - aims to encourage buyers to factor safety into their used-car purchase."Clearly if you knew the performance from a safety perspective of some vehicles in this list, you wouldn't buy them, and hopefully there would be dealers that wouldn't want to sell them either," Mr Case says."There have been some studies conducted that show there is an awareness of safety considerations but it still has a little way to go to compete with issues to do with the hip pocket - which means purchase price, but particularly features of comfort and convenience."The guide also shows that driving a safe car doesn't have to be expensive, Mr Case says, with several top-scoring vehicles selling for under $15,000."You don't have to buy a latemodel, expensive luxury vehicle, there are many vehicles at an affordable level that provide very good occupant protection."VicRoads vehicle safety manager Ross McArthur says the guide reveals that in spite of variances in safety levels from one vehicle category to another - small cars were found to be much safer than cars in the smaller light-cars category, for example - an obvious trend shows that newer cars are vastly more safe than their predecessors."What we found is that cars made before 1995 generally have a much poorer rating than ones made after 1995," Mr McArthur says. "There are exceptions but generally older vehicles are not as safe as newer ones."In cars made today, in comparison with vehicles made in 1990, there is a 30% reduction in the risk of being injured in a crash simply by the way they're manufactured."This safety gap turns into a gulf when comparing the best-performing vehicles in the guide to the worst, Mr McArthur says. "There's quite a difference, the safety factor or risk of being injured in a crash can vary by up to nine times, depending on the vehicle that you purchase." -- STEVE COLQUHOUN
© 2008 The Age