Wheels Active Safety Program 2008: The wash-up

WASP 2008: The Wash-up

Wheels Magazine
March, 2008

We found, again, that there are large differences in crash-avoidance capability between the most popular vehicles - even notional marketplace competitors at similar price points. We also found that the brand of car isn't a reliable barometer of crash-avoidance capability.

This was the best WASP yet, with the smartest set of test protocols, the best measurement technology, the highest level of experimental control and the best mix of tests. You can be confident the results are robust.

If the world was perfect, and a 'rewind' button existed that allowed you to back up and make things even better, I'd lose the hot lap test. It didn't really tell us anything. The intent was to mix every crash-avoidance discipline into one event, which it did, but it didn't add any value - the spread was just 0.45 points, first to last. I'd also down-play the points allocated to overtaking potential. Not because it isn't important - it is, but just maybe not as important as braking ability, for example - but because of the way the field spread out. This was due to big differences in engine outputs and mass across the field. There's a lot of variation in overtaking performance, and even at 10 points maximum (half that of the 'big four' tests) the field spread out over more than five points here, making variations in overtaking potential a bigger than average contributor to the jockeying for position in the final tally. Reversing vision contributed a fair bit to variation, too, for similar reasons.

WASP is essential reading if you don't want to confirm that, yes, all those airbags really do work. It's a tonne of prevention balanced against passive safety's gram of cure.

CHOOSE LIFE
The challenge for car buyers lies in relating WASP to the real world and selecting what is, ultimately, a safe car. Here are six tips on doing just that:

• Primarily, choose a car with high crash-avoidance capability - because then all the other considerations below are less relevant.
  
• Don't go below four stars in the ANCAP crash-test ratings. Option up side, head-protecting airbags or, better, curtains. Head injury is the biggest cause of serious injury in cars. Traumatic brain injury often leads to permanent disability, and the limit of medical intervention possible is to make sure it doesn't get any worse once you get to a trauma centre. (Oh, and shunting a pole sideways at just 29km/h is usually enough to kill you in the absence of side airbag protection. There's a happy thought ...)
  
• Choose a car with ESP standard (or option up to it). More information on ESP below ...
  
  
• Don't buy a car with a space-saver spare tyre. If the car in question comes standard with a space-saver, option up to a full-size spare (tell the dealer you absolutely won't buy the car without a full-sized spare and you'll probably get it for free). More information on space-saver tyres below ...
  
  
• Buy the biggest car you want. Socially unpalatable, and unsympathetic to the environment it may be. But if cars were around in Isaac Newton's day, he would only have owned a big one. In a car-to-car crash, the more mass, and more structure, around you, the better the outcome for you will be - regardless of crash-test ratings. (This isn't true when you hit massive, unyielding objects, however.)
  
  
• No reversing camera? Fit one aftermarket - it's $500 well spent.

ESP:
ESP's benefits are well documented. It's unclear whether WASP testing hinders or highlights the cars with ESP. With race drivers at the helm, cars are often faster (through slaloms and G-circles) with ESP off. But ESP helps high-speed lane changes, in any case, you want ESP in your car. The cars that had it standard in this field were: Aurion, Camry, Commodore, Lancer and Territory.

SPACE SAVER:
Earlier testing by Wheels has documented the atrophy of dynamic envelope that takes place when you fit a space saver spare tyre - cornering capacity shrinks and emergency brake distances extend by as much as 20 percent. The difference is massive, and you neither need nor deserve it. Space savers are a car company con. Here, they were fitted to: Commodore, Focus, Mazda3 and Lancer.

Read more on the Wheels Active Safety Program here:

WASP 2008 Tests: Hits and misses ...

WASP 2008 Results: Where the cars ranked and why ...

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