Used Car Safety Ratings

2008 update of passenger vehicles built 1982-2006

Revised UCSR system for 2008

The 2008 Used Car Safety Ratings (UCSR) are based on a new rating system and are not comparable with the ratings in previous years. The ratings reflect how well individual models protect ALL road users from injury in the event of a crash, including cyclists, pedestrians and drivers of other vehicles. This is a better guide to the total community impact of vehicle safety and if you are serious about reducing road trauma you need to consider how your vehicle protects all road users, not just its own occupants. 

The ratings are about the risk of injury related to vehicle design in the event of a crash. They are not about the risk of being involved in the crash in the first place, which is generally determined by a range of factors including driver behaviour and crash environment.

This update features 349 vehicle models

New makes and models of used vehicles, as well as an additional year of crash data, have been added for this update. The scores for each individual make/model are compared against the 'average' for all vehicles. Because the ratings reflect the overall crash safety performance of a vehicle, a vehicle can only score well if it provides good protection from serious injury for its own driver, as well as for other drivers, pedestrians, cyclists and motorcyclists in the event of a crash. 

• Protecting you in a crash
• Harming other road users
• Myths about vehicle safety  
• Calculating UCSR
• Effects of drivers on UCSR
• Difference between UCSR and ANCAP
• Newer vehicles are safer
• Results in previous years' format

Find a used car safety rating

• Light/Small
• Medium
• Large
• People movers
• 4WDs
• Commercial vehicles

Find out more about Used Car Safety Ratings.

Protecting you in a crash

If all vehicle designs were equivalent to the safest model, the number of fatal and disabling crash injuries could be significantly reduced.

Safety design features that can significantly reduce the risk of death or injury include:

• crumple zones
• collapsible steering columns
• reinforced door frames
• front, side and curtain airbags
• seat belts designed to work with airbags.

The charts in the  Buyers' guide to UCSR 2008 (PDF107KB/1 page) show safety ratings for 349 vehicle models.

 2008 Used Car Safety Ratings (PDF 2MB/1 page) brochure provides more information.

Harming other road users?

Your vehicle may protect you fairly well in a crash - but how seriously is it likely to harm another road user, such as a pedestrian, a cyclist, a motorcyclist or the driver of the other vehicle involved in the crash?

For example, the crash statistics studied by Monash University indicate that 4WDs are more likely to cause more serious injuries other drivers, while small cars are less likely to inflict damage on the other party in a crash.

The charts provide you with a rating for this.

If you care about the safety of other, consider choosing one of the best-rated models.

Myths about vehicle safety

MYTH: You can take more risks if you've got a vehicle with safety features - they will save you in a crash.

FACT: While safety features are more likely to increase your chances of surviving a crash, they don't make you indestructible. Safety features won't necessarily save you from death or serious injury, particularly if you're speeding or not wearing your seat belt.

MYTH: A safe vehicle is more expensive.

FACT: Many reasonably priced makes and models score very well in the safety ratings and better than some of the more expensive models.

Calculating UCSR

Records from over 3 million police-reported road crashes in New Zealand and Australia between 1987 and 2006 were analysed by Monash University's Accident Research Centre.

Ratings on combined protection to drivers and harm to other road users were calculated using an internationally reviewed method.* The ratings are influenced by the vehicle mass, the structural design of the vehicle body, and the safety features, such as airbags and types of seat belts, in the vehicle. There are 349 vehicle models with ratings for combined protection to drivers and other road users. These cover most of the popular vehicles in the Australian and New Zealand vehicle fleets.

* Full technical details on how the ratings are calculated can be found in a downloadable report on the  Monash University's Accident Research Centre website.

Effect of drivers on UCSR

These factors were taken into account as much as possible when the data was analysed. The rating factors out the effect, as much as possible, of who was driving the vehicle - and where.

Difference between UCSR and new car safety ratings (ANCAP)?

New car safety ratings (eg ANCAP) are determined by crash testing vehicles in a controlled laboratory setting while the Used Car Safety Ratings are calculated using data from police reports on actual crashes. Research shows that the two ratings systems correlate well overall.

However, the results should not be compared directly because the different sources of the ratings can lead to differences in the assessment of some vehicles.

Any vehicle safety rating system can only provide an indication of the relative levels of protection between vehicles you can expect in the event of a crash. Whether or not you die or are seriously injured in a crash also depends on how safely you drive your vehicle.

Newer vehicles are safer

An important finding of the Used Car Safety Ratings is that on average newer models provide their occupants with better protection from injury in a crash. These improvements come from better structural designs, as well as an increase in the fitting of safety features such as front, side and curtain airbags, more advanced seat belt systems and vehicle interiors built with plastics instead of steel, so that they provide padding when struck by a human occupant.

While average vehicle safety levels have improved over time, there is significant variation even between vehicle models of the same age. Furthermore, some vehicle models, including recent ones, provide good protection for their own occupants in a crash but do not score well in these overall safety ratings because they present a relatively high risk of injury to other road users in the crash. The Used Car Safety Ratings assist buyers to select vehicle models that provide the best protection for all road users including themselves.

Results in previous years' format

In previous years, these results were presented as separate ratings, one for occupant protection and one for "aggressivity", or how individual vehicle models injured other road users. See the ratings as previously presented. (PDF 214KB/10 pages)