Crash test safety ratings

[block58]

What is going to happen to them?

It has come to my attention lately that nearly all new cars are getting 5-star ratings. Sure, this is a good thing because cars are getting safer, but what is going to happen when the market gets flooded with 5-star cars? How will people differentiate between different 5-star cars?

It seems there are a few ways to rectify this:

1. Keep 5-star ratings but increase points available. Currently the maximum amount of points is 37. This could increase while factoring in better occupant protection and new crash avoidance technology, giving additional points for each. All cars would continue to get 5-stars, but some would get more points. The issue with this is that consumers generally refer to the (largely simplified) star system rather than looking up points specifically.

2. Keep 5-star rating but make it harder to aquire. So, as above, make more points available but also make the point requirements higher to aquire 5-stars. This would mean when buying a car a newly released 5-star car is always very safe by new regulations. The problem is that people would not be able to tell the safety difference between older 5-star cars and newer 5-star cars, unless the older cars got re-tested and had their star rating reduced.

3. Make more points AND stars available. Increase the maximum star rating to 10-stars and increase the amount of points. This would not only solve the issue of consumer understanding, but also encourage manufacturers to strive for a better star mark. This seems like a reasonable approach as it seems to solve the problems of 2 and 3, and would also give people something to look forward to in the news (eg. "Worlds first 7-star safety rated car...").

Any thoughts on the matter? Is one of these solutions (or another) already in use?

Cheers.

[TheInterceptor]

I think number 3 is the more logical one out of the 3.
Its a good point really, i was thinking about this the other day and thought they've hit the ceiling with the star ratings.
In the previous decade, SRS equipped cars were the safest, so that would mean 5 stars. Today, 12 airbags and a long list of driver assists and what not mean 5 stars.

So one would think it'll be good to go about keeping the 37 points but making it harder to earn the points. (but isnt that what they're doing now?)

[Cooper69S]

Originally Posted by block58

It has come to my attention lately that nearly all new cars are getting 5-star ratings. Sure, this is a good thing because cars are getting safer, but what is going to happen when the market gets flooded with 5-star cars? How will people differentiate between different 5-star cars?

yeah I've thought about that myself a few times - everyone seems to be 5 star safety these days. A 5-star S class Benz is going to give better crash protection than a 5-star cheapie hatchback - so more stars or points is needed - I suppose it would be easier to advertise star ratings than points

[xy500]

the star rating thing is pretty useless, extra points for beeping at you? not going to change much now is it.