The China Automotive Technology and Research Center (CATARC) has announced the changes to China NCAP which will become effective July 1, 2012. The main changes are as follows:
- Use of 5th%ile female dummy on a rear seat in Rigid Wall Test, ODB Test and Side Impact Test (+6 points)
- Increase of impact velocity in 40% ODB Test from 56 km/h to 64 km/h
- Introduction of Whiplash test with ΔV =15.65km/h, BioRID II dummy for assessment of injuries (+4 points)
- Availability of electronic stability control (ESC) (+1 point)
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Euro NCAP has announced the results of 12 recently tested cars and light trucks. The high safety level is documented by no less than 11 vehicles with a 5-star rating. In particular remarkable has been the first 5-star result for pick-up truck. The Ford Ranger achieved very high scores in all categories at levels that have not been seen for a light truck before.
Current information on worldwide consumer tests in vehicle safety is the focus of our seminar 
A pedestrian impact with the windscreen can result in serious head and neck injuries. Current test procedures do not allow to test such accidents sufficiently. Within a research project of the German Federal Highway Research Institute (BASt), a modular test process consisting of dummy tests and computer simulation has been developed. It is supposed to improve pedestrian safety by giving more reliable results. The full research report is available from BASt. 
The German Federal Highway Research Institute (BASt) has a new president. On October 21th, 2011, Mr. Rainer Bomba, State Secretary at the German Federal Ministry of Transport, Building and Urban Development (BMVBS) appointed Mr. Stefan Strick as the new president of BASt and gave a farewell address for the former president Prof. Dr.-Ing. Peter Reichelt.
Warning motorists of the end of a traffic jam over the brow of a hill or alerting them to black ice on bridges long before they reach the dangerous spot concerned – this is all set to become reality in the near future with Car-to-X communication. A breakthrough in the wireless exchange of information among vehicles and between vehicles and the traffic infrastructure has now been achieved by a research consortium headed by Daimler AG.
Following three years of intensive research work, Daimler and the involved project partners are presenting the current status of the simTD project in Friedberg/Hesse today. It is also announcing the launch of the largest field trial for Car-to-X communication worldwide: from the spring of 2012, around 120 vehicles will be testing the new technology in real road traffic in the Rhine-Main region. "We are convinced that Car-to-X communication represents an important step on the way to accident-free driving," observes simTD overall project coordinator Dr. Christian Weiß, who also heads the Cooperating Systems team in the Research and Advance Development department at Daimler AG.
In August 2011, 380 people were killed in accidents on German roads. As further reported by the Federal Statistical Office (Destatis) on the basis of provisional results, that was an increase of 80 people or 27% on August 2010. Thus the number of people killed increased nearly to the August 2009 level (386) after it had markedly declined in August 2010 (-22%).
"We have to prove the benefits of driver assistance systems"
