See The Remarkable Difference Between A Car Crash Test 20 Years Ago VS One Today

As dozens of automotive companies are racing to roll out driverless vehicles by 2020, it's important to remember how far automotive technology has come in just 20 years.

Crash testers Euro NCAP have released video footage highlighting the improvements to car safety over the past 20 years by comparing the crash tests of two vehicles side-by-side.



One is a 2017 model of a Honda Jazz, while the other is a Rover 100 dating back to 1997, when crash tests were first introduced by the Euro New Car Assessment Programme (NCAP).

 In each video the cars are travelling at the same speed — 40 miles per hour — when they collide, but the results are dramatically different.


While the 2017 Honda Jazz's crash resulted in a smashed windscreen and severely damaged bonnet, the Rover 100 was almost completely destroyed.

Unlike the Honda, the Rover also had no airbags to protect the crash test dummies sitting in its passenger seats. The Rover 100, which was taken off the market after scoring a one-star safety rating when it was tested 20 years ago, suffered far more damage than the latest Honda model.

Before the Euro NCAP was introduced, around 123,000 were killed in car accidents in the Europe alone. Today, that number is down to 8,500.

MORE than 78,000 lives (1) have been saved since Euro NCAP’s tough crash safety tests were launched 20 years ago this week. Today, Euro NCAP reveals it has published over 630 safety ratings, crash-tested some 1,800 cars and collectively spent over 160 million Euro (2) to make cars safer.

WATCH THE VIDEO BELOW



References: 1 and 2