Part of the United Kingdom's contribution to the development of European car safety standards consists of a series of full-scale impact tests using three models of cars of similar mass but distinctive layout (conventional, front drive, and rear engined). The aim is to compare different impact test procedures in relation to occupant protection in frontal impacts. The relative merits of the test methods for ensuring equal severity for different models of cars and encouraging good design for safety are discussed.

The test programme includes car-to-car head-on impacts with 40 per ceut overlap and a series of tests of cars impacting into different types of partial and angled barriers. All cars were moving at about 50 km/h. The paper briefly describes the test facilities and gives some preliminary results from the partially completed programme.