I think this needs to be made clear. Here's what the NCAP frontal offset deformable barrier test represents:
A car-to-car crash representing two cars of similar weight and bumper height crashing into each other off-centre with about 50% overlap, each travelling towards each other at a speed much lower than 64km/h (it's impossible to say but it's around 50-55km/h).
Quote:
The impact speed of 64 km/h was chosen on the basis of accident analyses carried out for EEVC Working Group 11, which developed the European test procedure.
An analysis of available frontal impact accident research concluded that a crash test, which replicated a car to car crash at 55 km/h, would address just under half of the serious and fatal casualties (AIS23). Reducing that speed to 50 km/h would address few such casualties, whereas, increasing the speed to 60 km/h would address about two thirds of them (Table 1).
No direct comparison exists to relate the impact speed in an ODB test to its equivalent speed in a car to car crash, between similar cars. In the car to car impact, each car has to absorb its own impact energy. In an ODB test, the deformable barrier absorbs some of the impact energy. The amount of energy it absorbs depends upon how the car’s structure loads the honeycomb. In comparative tests using a modem family size car, a car to car crash at 55 km/h was more severe than an ODB test at 65 km/h. This car loaded the deformable barrier relatively uniformly, such that the barrier would be quite efficient in
absorbing energy. Future car designs are likely to load the deformable barrier at least as well. In this way, the designer can minimise the amount of energy his car has to absorb.
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(
Development of the European New Car Assessment Programme; TRL)
I'm really glad the XUV700 could mitigate life-threatening or disabling injury in this crash and in this case I wouldn't be surprised if the NCAP rating did have something to do with it. But I think the driver got slightly lucky (besides the fact that he crashed) in that he crashed into the wheel and not the side of the bus.
In a car-to-car crash energy dissipation takes place primarily through the front longitudinals, two steel beams that sit behind the bumper, very low to the ground and nearer the centre of the car.
These are intended to load the bumper of the opposing car in a crash, or in the case of the Global NCAP frontal offset test, the blue deformable barrier.
If you crash into the rear or side of a commercial vehicle that sits high to the ground, it's very likely these members will be bypassed ('underride'). That's why I think it's important that this particular car crashed into the wheel.
Remember, NCAP ratings have all the limitations of a laboratory test. They're consumer ratings for everyday car buyers who will do a normal mix of city and interurban driving. I don't think the premise of 'buying a safer car
because you'll do a lot of highway driving' is right because there's no test to represent those crashes. You don't buy a BEE five star rated refrigerator and leave the door open 'because it's five star rated'.
I'm not saying you shouldn't buy a safer car, and I completely support what NCAPs are trying to do, all I'm saying is that if you buy a safer car with the
intention of driving in a more careless manner then you'd probably be better off driving a car that meets basic UN regulation knowing it's a deathtrap than driving a five star car assuming it's a tank. A five star car would be most effective if you drove it knowing it's a deathtrap too, though it is more likely to protect better in a limited number of common crashes. In certain crashes a five star car could provide protection to the degree of even full integrity of body parts, in a lower rated car, in the same crash you could face a serious risk of disabling injuries or in the case of zero and one star cars even life-threatening injuries. But you shouldn't assume that five stars=full integrity holds true for crashes other than the kind the NCAP tests represent.
The point of an NCAP rating is to provide a comparison for a shopper but there are many types of crashes (and not just high-speed crashes) where every car in a segment would prove equally dangerous, which is why NCAPs find it pointless to test for them because they wouldn't be able to assign a comparative rating. There are multiple quacks on YouTube today trying to promote five star cars based on real-world crashes where they happened to protect even if the configuration was not remotely related to the kind of crashes the car is engineered to handle, supposedly 'proving its build quality'. And in case the car couldn't prevent fatal injury, the excuse is 'it would've been worse if there was a lower rated car'. Worse how?