NHTSA Finalizes Updates to 5-Star Safety Ratings Program

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration this week finalized updates to its 5-Star Safety Ratings program, an action the agency’s will improve safety by incorporating new advanced driver assistance technologies, adding a crashworthiness pedestrian protection program and creating a roadmap for future program changes over the next 10 years.

The 5-Star Safety Ratings program is known as the New Car Assessment Program. It emphasizes new and emerging safety technologies and vehicle safety features designed to help protect people inside and outside a vehicle. The safety update was included as part of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.

Notable changes to the program provided by the update include:

• The addition of four advanced driver assistance technologies to enhance crash-avoidance safety: pedestrian automatic emergency braking, lane keeping assist, blind spot warning and blind spot intervention.
• Updated and strengthened testing procedures and performance criteria for advanced driver assistance technologies are already included in NCAP, such as automatic emergency braking.
• The addition of a crashworthiness pedestrian protection program to evaluate the ability of a vehicle’s front end to mitigate pedestrian injuries and fatalities in vehicle-to-pedestrian impacts.
• Midterm and long-term roadmaps to accommodate future updates amid ongoing research and technological advancements in vehicle safety, including crash avoidance and crashworthiness improvements to protect bicyclists and motorcyclists and an updated rating system.

An updated NCAP is a component of the department’s National Roadway Safety Strategy. NCAP is NHTSA’s flagship consumer information program for evaluating vehicle safety. The program evaluates how well vehicles perform in various crash tests, including rollover risk, and provides an objective rating on a five-star scale.