NCAP awards top safety ratings

Euro NCAP has awarded top safety ratings to the MINI Countryman and Škoda Kodiaq, while The Suzuki Swift is rated as three stars as standard and four stars with the optional safety equipment.

All cars reach the five star levels for adult occupant protection, child protection and pedestrian protection. The differences come in the fitment of advanced driver assistance systems. The Škoda Kodiaq is equipped as standard with an AEB system that detects pedestrians as well as other cars. Its five-star rating continues Škoda’s recent good form: all recently tested Škodas have been rated as five stars.

The MINI has AEB car-to-car as standard and pedestrian detection as an option, while only the Suzuki Swift does not offer AEB pedestrian, with AEB car-to-car in its ‘Radar Brake Support’ option pack.

Euro NCAP secretary general, Michiel van Ratingen, said, ‘Euro NCAP started rewarding AEB pedestrian systems last year and we have seen a rapid uptake of the technology. We hope to see as fast an adoption of AEB systems that detect cyclists when tests of those systems form part of the rating next year. For 20 years, Euro NCAP has been pushing manufacturers to fit new and better safety technologies: originally, such things as airbags and pre-tensioners and, nowadays, advanced driver assistance systems that will form the building blocks for the automated vehicles of tomorrow.’

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