Skoda aces the crash test

Skoda's researchers crashed a Yeti model into a stationary Superb station wagon (pictured) at 90km/h. Photo / Supplied

Skoda has pushed the safety envelope by staging a frontal offset crash test at a far higher speed than is accepted by regulatory bodies worldwide.

The carmaker's researchers crashed a Yeti model into a stationary Superb station wagon at 90km/h - 26km/h faster than the 64km/h standard used by Europe's New Car Assessment Programme.

Both cars were carrying four crash test dummies secured with seatbelts. Skoda's researchers said the results were clear: "The occupants of both cars would survive a real-life crash without any injuries, subject to all safety elements being used correctly."

The crash test was inspired by a real traffic accident. Skoda said photographs showed that the energy of the impact was absorbed by the front of the car, without any impact on the space of the passengers.

It said the car's electronic systems had activated safety belts and knee and front airbags before the test dummies had any chance to move as a result of the impact.

Only 45 thousandths of a second after the front bumpers first touched, all the airbags had already absorbed the human body's energy.

Although the crash test was performed at a higher speed than Euro-NCAP uses, Skoda used accepted criteria to measure the stress of impact on occupants.

Euro-NCAP prescribes a stress value of 80G on a passenger's head, the maximum value of acceleration the human brain can handle for a short period without any serious damage.

The value measured on the head of the driver's dummy in the Skoda Yeti reached 44 per cent of the 80G value, or less than half. Compression of an adult passenger's chest showed 35.7 per cent of the acceptable limit - crash stress on thigh bones was 20 per cent of the permitted maximum.

Real-world data, says Skoda, shows that more than 50 per cent of all fatalities to seatbelt-wearing drivers in frontal crashes occur at impact speeds under 55km/h.