How to buy a safe second hand car

Judging how safe a car is

There are two sources of valuable information. These are crash test results and car accident statistics.

Who conducts the crash tests and how

Crash tests are a scientific way of rating individual cars for safety. Australian New Car Assessment Programme (ANCAP) runs three different tests. The most realistic of these is the offset test. This determines the chance of the occupants' survival when the car crashes into a solid object at 64km/h, at a slight angle.

How car crash test results are rated

ANCAP believes occupants should survive a collision at 64km/h. Cars tested in this programme receive a star rating indicating chances of injury. One star is a pass, but an occupant would probably be injured. Five stars means you would probably walk away from the car accident.

Car accident statistics

The other way to rate cars for safety is by statistical analysis of real world crashes. For information on crashes on New Zealand roads, Land Transport NZ has linked up with Melbourne's Monash University Accident Research Centre.

There, researchers have conducted a huge study of two-way car crashes in New Zealand and Australia. Using statistics, Monash researchers have rated cars according to their chances of killing or injuring their occupants in a two-vehicle crash.

What both of these studies tell us

Both methods show significant differences between individual models and years. In general, most late 1980s cars are:

Unsafe by today's standards
Lacking airbags, self-tightening seatbelts and ABS (anti-skid) braking

Pre-2000 vehicles which are in the Light (under 1300cc) and Small (1500cc) classes rate poorly.

Other significant findings include:

Older, mid-sized Japanese cars rate badly
Older people-movers are unsafe, but the class improved during the 1990s
Small European cars appear in fewer fatal and injury accidents than small Japanese cars of similar age
Big European, Australian and Japanese cars and SUVs protect their inhabitants well in two-car smashes, but not the passengers in the cars they collide with

SUV and 4WD safety

SUVs or 4WDs appear safe. Some are amongst the safest cars in two-vehicle collisions. The problem is their high-riding nature and tank-like construction. You're actually driving a light truck. If you lose control in the wet, you're less likely to regain it.