Influx Of Cheap Cars Scary, Warns Crash Expert
Sydney Morning Herald
Saturday July 5, 2008
CUT-PRICE cars set to flood into the Australian market from China or India could present a "significant risk to road safety", a leading crash-test authority has warned.
Professor Soames Job, the deputy chairman of the Australasian New Car Assessment Program and director of the NSW Centre for Road Safety, describes the influx of cheap cars as "scary" and urges new-car buyers to demand high levels of safety.Cheap imports will arrive in Australian showrooms over the next 12-18 months from Chinese manufacturers such as Chery and Great Wall. Last year the Brilliance BS6 (a Chinese car exported to Europe) scored a one-star rating in German tests that used the same frontal offset impact as ANCAP (pictured).It was reported that the impact resulted in the steering wheel moving so far to one side that the crash test dummy in the driver's seat missed the inflated airbag entirely, its head instead hitting the dashboard. The passenger cell was so badly damaged that heavy equipment was needed to extract the "driver". Testers said the driver would not have survived. Job foresees potential safety risks in such cars. "The results are scary, in some ways and, indeed, one of the reasons we want the community to know about this is the risk of these products coming in. We do anticipate exposures in terms of other vehicles that may come to us from China or India and be sold very competitively on price, but [perform] very poorly on safety."So there are risks into the foreseeable future that we need to try to manage with a very strong message to the public about the level of safety they should expect and demand of a vehicle before they purchase it." ANCAP's limited budget means it is unlikely to crash-test every imported model to land on Australian soil, he says, so some might slip through the safety net.Ateco is the local importer bringing the Chery and Great Wall brands to Australia. Its spokesman, Edward Rowe, says every model it will import from China will meet Australian Design Rules."All the vehicles we will sell in Australia will meet all Australian crash test requirements," he says. "All safety and legal requirements will be met; they couldn't be sold here if they didn't."But, Job says, it is technically possible for a car to meet design rule requirements, yet still score a zero-star rating.Rowe says Ateco will consider submitting the Chery and Great Wall models for ANCAP testing. "If they want to make the request, we'll look at it at the time."
© 2008 Sydney Morning Herald
