Rider safety will become an important requirement in cars obtaining star ratings from 2022 under the ANCAP (Australasian New Car Assessment Program) ratings.
That means it will be tougher for cars to obtain a full five stars unless they have active mechanisms to detect and avoid crashes with motorcycles.
They include blind spot alerts, autonomous emergency braking (AEB) and other automated technologies that steer cars away from crashing with riders.
ANCAP chief technical officer Mark Terrell says the 2022 introduction of the “Powered Two Wheeler – PTW” test target will be based on the “MUSE” project (Motorcycle Users Safety Enhancement), undertaken by Euro NCAP.
The testing used a special motorcycle dummy to simulate various common motorcycle scenarios.
Tougher ANCAP tests
Mark says a similar series of tougher tests for the detection of pedestrians and bicycles has already been incorporated in ANCAP.
“From the start of 2020, the proportion of points for pedestrian and cyclist AEB does increase – making it more likely that manufacturers will need to fit advanced systems to achieve a good star rating,” he says.
“In reality most five-star cars in 2018/19 do have AEB with pedestrian and cyclist detection.
“The actual test scenarios and scoring for 2022 (for motorcycles and scooters) are still under consideration, so I don’t have further detail on these that I can provide at the moment.”
However, we expect they will be similarly tougher.
Hopefully this leads to safer cars on the road and will avoid the SMIDSY (Sorry Mate I Didn’t See You) syndrome.