Honda CR-Z is now officially one of the safest European cars, following the crash testing results provided by Euro NCAP which set a five star rating for the safety of the CR-Z. These results are based on the latest testing scheme introduced by Euro NCAP in February 2009. Honda CR-Z is the fifth Honda model to receive this top safety rating after the Honda Civic, Accord, Jazz and Insight, these Honda models also receiving 5 stars. The safety score is calculated taking into account the data obtained from frontal, side, rear and pole crash tests, rating the protection for the adult and child occupants as well as that of pedestrians and also the availability of driver assistance systems, which must be fitted as standard on 90 percent of the 2010 Honda CR-Z European model range.
Safety features of the 2010 Honda CR-Z
The Honda VSA or Vehicle Stability Assist also fitted on the CR-Z controls the car during cornering, acceleration or emergency maneuvers by applying braking force to each wheel individually or controlling the amount of engine torque distributed to the wheels to obtain the desired handling result. The car has 14 inches ventilated front brake discs and solid rear brake discs and several electronic braking assisting systems like ABS, Electronic Brake force Distribution (EBD) and Brake Assist (BA).
Honda CR-Z is built on Honda’s Advanced Compatibility engineering body structure designed to maximize the occupant protection in case of a frontal crash. The ACE car body design uses a network of interconnected structural elements to distribute most of the crash force in the front of the car and minimize the amount of force reaching the passenger compartment. This system also reduces the forces the other vehicle in a crash would have to withstand.
The car has front and side airbags for the driver and front seat passenger as well as full length curtain airbags. All seats have three point seatbelts with Emergency Locking Retractor. Additionally the front seatbelts have two stage Energy Absorption load limiting pretensioners. The rear seats have ISOFIX points for mounting child seats. Honda CR-Z also has active headrests for the front seats to reduce the risk of neck injury in case of a rear impact.
I did not expect such good crash tests results from such a small profile car. Even if it is not exactly my type of car, I have to admit that it looks quite nice. It seems that car engineering is making some progress in accident protection after all. As far as I can tell, more and more cars get better at this.