Five budget hatches crashed for safety

GLOBAL NCAP has partnered with the Automobile Association (AA) to launch the ‘Safer Cars for Africa’ campaign, releasing the independent crash-test results of five budget vehicles that sell particularly well in SA.

The Chery QQ3, Datsun GO+, Renault Sandero, Volkswagen Polo Vivo and Toyota Etios were the five budget hatches sacrificed in the test, and the AA says combined sales of these five cars accounted for around 65% of all the new cars sold last year.

Global NCAP chose the entry-level version of each model, with the body shells of two of them proving ‘unstable’.

The results, the AA says, highlight differences in the structural integrity of the vehicles tested.

While the Chery QQ3 and Datsun GO+ both performed poorly, the Sandero and Vivo proved to provide decent levels of safety to vehicle’s occupants.

But it was the Etios which came out tops.

The budget Toyota returned the best results of the bunch, scoring four stars for adult occupancy and three stars for child occupancy.

Collins Khumalo, CEO of the AA in SA said that the crash tests represent an important step in road safety locally.

‘We believe consumers have a right to know what the safety ratings are on the cars they want to buy,’ he said.

‘These results are critical to educating the public about vehicle safety, but, more than that, they empower road users to make informed decisions.

In the same way emissions and green ratings are displayed on vehicles, we think safety ratings should also be displayed on vehicles, and we don’t believe this should be too much of a challenge to make happen,’ said Khumalo.

The crash tests were completely independent and Global NCAP purchased the five new in SA before shipping them to the ADAC test facility in Landsberg, Germany, where they were each put through a full crash-test evaluation.

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