In 1992 Australia commenced a New Car Assessment Program. The first group of vehicles tested were medium/large family sedans. This group was tested at 56.3 km/h (35 mph) in a full frontal test identical to the US NCAP test. Only Hybrid III dummies are used. Some of the vehicles performed significantly worse than their US counterparts. Some reasons for these differences were readily evident. For instance, it appears likely that occupant excursions were generally greater in the Australian vehicles due to high elongation seat belt webbing.

The program has gone on to conduct the 56.3 km/h full frontal test and an additional 50% offset test at 60 km/h into an aluminium honeycomb energy absorbing barrier face, on small cars and four wheel drive vehicles.

The program already appears to be having a significantly positive effect on the introduction and marketing of safety features in new vehicles. There appears to be a new strong safety marketing drive, airbags are now promised in GM and Ford family sedans. This paper presents the results of the test programs, a comparison to equivalent overseas fleets, and the improvement which the program appears to be bringing.