The protection of pedestrians in crashes has been addressed by friendlier car fronts. This is a process driven by both regulation and consumer test programs. Since 1997, Euro NCAP has been testing and assessing the level of protection for most car models available in Europe.

In the current study, the Euro NCAP pedestrian scoring was compared with the real-life outcome in pedestrian crashes that occurred in Sweden 2003-2010. The real-life crash data was obtained from the data acquisition system STRADA, which combines police records and hospital admission data. The medical data consisted of ICD diagnoses and AIS scoring. In all approximately 500 pedestrians were included in the study. Each car model was coded according to Euro NCAP pedestrian scores. In addition, the presence or absence of Brake Assist (BA) was coded for each car involved. The injury scores for each individual were translated to Risk of Serious Consequences (RSC) at 1, 5 and 10% risk of disability level. This will indicate the total risk of a medical disability given the severity and location of injury.

The results showed a significant reduction of injury severity for cars with better pedestrian scoring, although cars with a high score could not be studied, due to lack of cases. The reduction of RSC for medium performing cars in comparison with low performing cars was 17, 26 and 38% for 1, 5 and 10% of medical impairment, respectively. These results applied to urban areas with speed limits up to 50 km/h, although no significant reduction was found in higher speed zones.

While Brake Assist (BA) was found to contribute to a small injury reduction of about 5%, the results were non-significant. It was also found that the combined effect of BA and higher pedestrian scoring was greater than the two effects separately