How safe is your car?

The number 1 rule when on the road is to ensure safety for all – that includes you, your passengers, other drivers and the pedestrians and cyclists who are also using the road. But did you know that this effort isn’t all entirely up to you? Your car plays a major role in keeping you safe! Not everyone buys a car thinking about its safety ratings, but it is the best way to know how your car reacts in a crash or an accident. But do you know how cars get rated and which cars are rated the best?

Following international standards

The ASEAN NCAP Safety Rating is the South East Asian authority that produces ratings on car safety. They do this by crashing the cars (literally!) and assessing the effect on the adult and child dummies seated within. The less damage the dummies suffer, the better the score, and the better the score, the more stars a car gets!

The NCAP rating is based on several key factors – Adult Occupant Protection (AOP), Child Occupant Protection (COP), Safety Assist and Motorcyclist Safety. Don’t worry we’ll go into detail into all of that!

That said, the ASEAN NCAP rating is not 100% accurate for pre-owned cars, since they might have already gone through an airbag activation or two. Nonetheless, it pays to check through vehicle and accident histories to make sure the pre-owned car you’re buying doesn’t compromise safety standards.

Thankfully, all myTukar Certified cars are guaranteed to have not met with any major accidents, as well as fire and flood damage. myTukar Certified cars also come with a 160-point inspection where we’ll find and fix all issues, so you’ll be getting a car as good as new.

Adult Occupant Protection (AOP)

The AOP is one of the core NCAP tests – no surprise since the person sitting in the driver’s seat is likely an adult. (If a kid is behind the wheel, then something has gone really wrong!) The AOP safety assessment goes through two crash assessments, namely the frontal and side impact tests.

In both cases, sensors in the dummies measure the forces acting upon them, and the data is assessed along with an inspection of physical vehicle deformation, on-board hazards, and performance of in-built restraint systems. Scores are then determined for each respective crash test.

So what does a 5-star car look like? It would look like a Mitsubishi Outlander! Equipped with a suite of airbags (including driver knee airbags!) that keep the occupants safe which helped it earn a safety score of 33 of 36! So if you think a Mitsubishi Outlander might be for you, check out our collection and test drive a myTukar Certified car that is as good as new.

Child Occupant Protection (COP)

Arguably one of the most important tests, as no car can get a full 5 star ANCAP rating without providing a good level of protection to child occupants. These tests ensure the car is able to keep children safe, regardless if they are in a rearward-facing child capsule seat or a forward-facing child booster seat. Like the AOP tests, the COP tests include assessments on frontal and side impact. Plus points, if the car also has Child Presence Detection technology.

But there’s an additional check for the Child Restraint System (CRS), which tests its performance and installation. CRS, also known as child seats, can be killer machines during a crash. Part of the CRS checks include making sure the dummies have not made any hard contact with the vehicle or are ejected during a crash. An installation check will also make sure that approved car seats can be installed correctly and easily at all suitable seating positions.

Malaysia’s most popular car is also one of the safest for children with a child safety score of 43.1 of 49! Apart from the great child safety, the Myvi is also one of the most affordable cars on this list and has great fuel economy to boot! If this is what you are looking for, you can check out our extensive inventory of Myvi’s that are myTukar Certified to be free from major accident, fire, and flood damage.

Safety Assist

Modern cars have a host of safety features that help avoid or reduce the severity of a crash by braking, steering or otherwise protecting the vehicle and passengers, as well as other motorists and pedestrians. These features include autonomous emergency braking (AEB) systems, lane support systems (LSS), automatic emergency steering (AES), and speed assistance systems (SAS).

The safety assist test checks how responsive these systems are to objects before it such as a wall, a car, a motorbike, or even a person suddenly appearing in front of it if the driver does not brake.

Another 5-star car is the Proton X70, comes with a suite of high tech sensors and software programmes that were once merely ideas. The system detects and identifies objects in front of, beside, and behind the car and decides if the car needs to brake, all on its own. After passing the aforementioned tests, this system was given a safety assist score of 19.5 of 21! You still have to pay attention to the road though!

Should you be looking for a safe and spacious family car, check out our inventory of X70s!

Motorcyclist Safety

Motorcyclists make up 80% of the total number of road users in Southeast Asia, including Malaysia. Hence ASEAN NCAP decided to champion the safety of two-wheeled drivers. Since 2021, NCAP tests have included Motorcyclist Safety at the forefront. Tests will be carried out for blind spot detections, advanced rear view mirror technologies, and auto high beam functions to look out for motorcyclists. In short, points are awarded for technologies that may reduce motorcyclist fatalities in ASEAN.

Overall a 5-star car, the Honda HR-V has a bunch of sensors that notifies the driver if someone or something is too close to the car. This is particularly helpful as you can’t have perfect awareness of your surroundings all the time, so hearing those alerts can let you know that something is pretty close to you when you aren’t looking. Even so, the HR-V is pretty middle-of-the-road, with a score of 10 out of 20.

If you like this feature, you can test drive one of our HR-Vs and find the right one for you!

Conclusion

Safety is no joke, and it is understandable if you only pick 5-star cars and thoroughly vet any car you look at. Here at myTukar we make things easy for you. Every myTukar Certified car is rigorously inspected to ensure it passes our 160-point inspection and is transparently displayed on our website to provide you with the safest car possible.