Nothing can prepare you for the visceral experience of a vehicle crash test. Paul Rodger put himself in the driver’s seat (figuratively speaking) at ANCAP’s Crashlab.
What happens when an irresistible force meets an immovable object? We’ve all heard this classic paradox, but now the question tumbles around in my head and won’t leave me alone. The only answer I can think of is this: it will cause an indescribable collision.
I’ve been invited to witness Toyota’s new Kluger SUV undergo a crash test at the NSW Crashlab facility in Sydney. The lab is one of only a few in the world and it’s where the Australasian New Car Assessment Program (ANCAP) conducts tests to compare the crash protection in new cars.
I’m standing in the viewing booth with several other observers who have come to watch the Kluger driven into a 110-tonne concrete block at 64km/h. The test today is a frontal offset crash, so-called because the car’s front will bear the brunt.
Shatter-proof polycarbonate plastic separates us from the impact area just in case any loose objects should fly off the car on impact. Behind me stretches the runway the car will be ‘fired’ down, in the middle of which is a deep groove that houses towing gear. This towing gear grips the car from below and controls its velocity.
In front of me is a huge bank of lights, dazzling in their intensity, and precision recording gear, including high-speed cameras. All this equipment is trained on the concrete block that dominates the centre of the facility. It’s a hulking great slab which has been locked into the ground with four high-strength pins to make doubly sure it won’t move. The only concession to softness is a crushable honeycomb barrier in front of the block that will simulate another vehicle. In every way, the block looks a formidable thing to drive headlong into.
Which brings us back to that paradox. Of course, there is no such thing as an immovable object or an irresistible force (at least in our universe – just ask the physicists). And I have no doubt which object will come out worse here – the vehicle. All that matters is how badly it will fare, and the crash’s effect on the test dummy occupants. That is, after all, what ANCAP is here to discover.
When the car begins its fateful journey down the runway, building speed as it goes, time seems suspended. Closer and closer the car comes until it reaches its optimum speed and slams into the concrete block.
The sound comes as a shock, even though we anticipate it. It is loud, it is sudden and it is the sound of destruction. Had it come from a Sydney road, it might well have been the sound of death.
As quickly as it began, the test is over. We inspect what is left of the vehicle and find it is severely damaged, what an insurer would surely call a ‘write-off’. The bonnet has been bent out of shape and the front grille is almost obliterated. Remarkably, the roof and cabin have maintained their shape, which is good news for the test dummy occupants. The air bags have deployed and the seat belts are intact too.
Still, I can’t help think what it would be like if I were behind the wheel instead of the crash test dummy. I would be injured, perhaps badly injured, but I would almost certainly have emerged from the crash with my life. It’s a remarkable realisation given the impact’s intensity and the sorry, tangled mess of a vehicle I see before me. The concrete block, meanwhile, has not budged. Only the honeycomb barrier is damaged – it now bears the Toyota’s imprint.
To summarise the outcome in sporting parlance: Concrete block 1, Toyota 0.
The test was over in a matter of seconds (and the impact itself in tenths of a second). But many weeks of planning went into the test, and more still after it.
It is also an expensive exercise. According to director of the NSW Centre for Road Safety and ANCAP deputy chair, Dr Soames Job, a crash test on a new vehicle costs roughly $200,000. Even the honeycomb barrier costs $3000 and has to be imported from the UK. A contributing factor is that ANCAP must purchase the cars it tests. In Europe, by contrast, the onus lies with manufacturers to provide their latest vehicles to the Euro NCAP safety assessment program.
Prior to the crash test, we were allowed to inspect the Toyota Kluger and some of the technology used to conduct the test. Peering into the vehicle’s boot confirms there are big sums associated with safety testing. Half a million dollars worth of data acquisition equipment is packed into the vehicle. It’s an impressive array of wiring, plugs and black boxes capable of withstanding 100G of force in any direction. The equipment can receive 96 channels of data from the vehicle and the crash test dummies strapped into their seats (two adults in the front and two children aged 18 months and three years in child restraints in the back) at an astonishing 20,000 times a second.
The dummies are sophisticated proto-humans designed to provide vital clues about what happens in a crash. Three accelerometers in the head give information about the forces and accelerations affecting the brain. In the neck are devices to measure bending, shearing and tension forces as the head is thrown forwards and backwards. A device in the chest records chest compression, while the legs are fitted with load cells which can detect the likelihood of injury to the pelvis, femur (thigh) and knee. Leg injuries are common, particularly if contact is made with the dashboard’s lower fascia.
Interestingly, neither arm carries instrumentation. Arms tend to flail uncontrollably in a crash test and serious injuries are uncommon. It’s also difficult to provide worthwhile protection for this part of the body.
It isn’t all high-tech gear either. Dry chalk paint on key areas of the dummies’ bodies reveals which body parts hit which part of the vehicle’s interior, such as where the forehead makes contact with the airbag and where a dummy’s knee might strike the dashboard.
After the test, we’re taken on a tour of the dummy test laboratory and introduced to the dummies that are put to work in the vehicles. Walking around the lab is like walking around the great factory in Huxley’s Brave New World, where beings are bent, prodded, pounded and dropped to ensure their efficacy for their chosen role. The dummies here are called ‘Hybrid IIIs’, which only adds to the feeling that this is a place where faux-people are created for a specific purpose.
In this place, dummies don’t grow old and they are never put out to pasture. Instead, individual body parts are replaced whenever they show signs of wear. The dummies are also continually checked for stresses on their bodies to ensure they react the same way every time they undergo a crash test.
We also learn the dummies used for the frontal offset test differ from those used to perform a side impact test. In this type of test, a 950kg trolley with a crushable aluminium front (once again, to simulate the front of another vehicle) is driven into the driver’s side of a test vehicle. The dummies used in this test are configured differently to best replicate the movement of a human body in a side impact, as might happen at an intersection.
The tour is a fascinating reminder of the human body’s fragility and the important role the dummies have to play. They feel no pain, nor can they speak, but they are still able to faithfully report the extent of their injuries.
ANCAP’s role is an important one. It exists to provide information on occupant and pedestrian protection so consumers can easily compare safety between models when purchasing a new vehicle. It functions as one prong in a three-pronged effort to reduce fatalities and accidents on the road. While ANCAP aims to further the development of safer vehicles, the Australian Road Assessment Program (AusRAP) highlights road improvements that could reduce the likelihood of crashes – and make those that do happen survivable. The third prong is the impetus to create safer drivers, something the government promotes in several ways.
This approach to road safety is summed up in the RTA’s ‘Safe System Partnership’, which recognises that human error is inevitable and requires roads, roadside environments and vehicles to be forgiving of driver error. According to Dr Job, “The aim is to have more informed people driving safer vehicles on safer roads at safer speeds.”
ANCAP also heightens consumer demand for safer vehicles. Because test results are commonly reported in the press and are freely available, they influence the safety expectations consumers have. Underscoring its importance, ANCAP is supported by all of Australia’s and New Zealand’s car clubs, including NRMA, the Australian states’ road and transport authorities and the New Zealand government.
The aim is to encourage manufacturers to develop and produce cars with a five-star rating, the highest possible. This rating is obtained by combining results from the frontal offset and side impact tests. There is also provision in the scoring system for an extra test known as a pole impact test, which the vehicle manufacturer must pay for and which is only carried out when a head-protecting side airbag is fitted. Bonus points from the pole impact test must be awarded if a car is to receive a five-star rating.
As of January 2008, a vehicle must also be fitted with electronic stability control (ESC) to qualify for a five-star rating. Australian research shows ESC can reduce single-car crashes by more than a quarter, and single-vehicle 4WD crashes by almost three-quarters. “By making ESC a five-star ANCAP rating requirement,” says Dr Job, “it is hoped manufacturers will be encouraged to include this life-saving feature.”
The latest Ford Falcon recently became the first Australian-built car to receive such a rating. The Toyota Kluger, the vehicle tested on the day of my visit to the Crashlab, scored five stars out of a possible five.
With my day at the lab over, I turn my back on the facility and return to my car. I think about the twisted lump of metal that earlier today was a brand new and perfectly driveable vehicle. Now it is a specimen being pored over for statistics. As I drive home, I know there is no way I want to be a dummy behind the wheel.
Open Road e-zine October 2008
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