In Japan, pedestrian accidents account for about 30% of traffic accident mortality. Head injuries are 60% of the cause of death in pedestrian accidents. Therefore, the pedestrian head protection performance test using adult and child head impactors has been conducted in J-NCAP since 2003.

The testing method was created based on the Japanese laws and regulations and proposals made by IHRA pedestrian WG. However, taking into consideration the distribution of the head impact positions for vehicles in the accident data, the impact area was extended to the windshield section (windshield, A-pillar, roof front edge, etc.). In addition, in order to cover a larger number of accidents, the impact velocity of the head impactor was set at 35 km/h, approximately 10% higher than the legal requirement.

The evaluation method was created based on the Euro-NCAP method. In order to more minutely evaluate the vehicle safety performance, the number of areas was increased in comparison with that used in Euro-NCAP. Moreover, in order to clearly evaluate the difference in the vehicle safety performance, a sliding scale was adopted to convert the injury values ranging from HIC650 to HIC2000 to the score. A vehicle is evaluated according to a 5-stage evaluation system from the total score of all the areas. In the 5-stage evaluation system, each stage was determined based on the AIS4 injury probability.

In 2003, 19 vehicles were tested, and 4 vehicles were tested in the first half of 2004. The distribution of the evaluation results classified as levels 1 to 5 (the higher the level, the better the pedestrian protection performance) indicated that 7 vehicles were at level 3, 13 vehicles were at level 2, 1 vehicle was at level 1, and none for levels 4 and 5. In general, the HIC value was higher in the section close to the side of the vehicle and the window frame.