What are safety ratings?

Safety ratings in use today are objective tools for the assessment and improvement of aspects of the safety of vehicles, the road network, work-related road safety and international safety performance.

Safety ratings either predict safety outcomes for given designs or provide a retrospective assessment based on crash data. Different safety rating systems currently in use provide an impartial means of assessing the relative performance of:

• New vehicles in crash tests (e.g. Euro NCAP, ANCAP, USNCAP, JNCAP)
• The safety performance of ‘on the road’ vehicles in crashes (e.g. Folksam car safety rating)
• Different parts of the road network through risk-mapping and road protection scores (e.g. EuroRAP, AusRAP (iRAP and usRAP are under development)
• National road safety performance in relation to other countries (e.g. ETSC PIN)
• The safety quality of commercial road transport operations (e.g. Swedish Q3 rating)

Ratings for safety equipment (e.g. for child restraints NPACS and crash helmets) are currently under development.