EuroNCAP and IIHS safety tests could be unified

The automakers put a great emphasis on the achieved results in the impact tests supported by EuroNCAP in Europe and by IIHS in the United States.

The good results are synonymous with the efforts that comply the safety rules, different rules but in Europe and the United States. And to avoid the costly investments, is necessary to comply different rules, the automakers are looking for the unification testing and the establishment of a common scoring criteria.

"The producers believe that they can save hundreds millions of dollars if the safety standards will be unified the on the both continents."

To put pressure on the two test bodies, the manufacturers want to order more specialty studies, able to find common ground between European and American tests. Thus, the European companies and oversea asked for help the Transport Research Institute of Michigan and a group of researchers at Chalmers University of Gothenburg to try to convince the authorities of the benefits of the unified tests. These two institutes will accumulate the data and will propose a methodological solution by the end of April or the early May. The analyses will last until the end of 2014, when the two parts will be in a single step from the finalization of common rules.