I witnessed a car crash test: what I saw shocked me

Even when it’s part of a controlled test and you’re standing at a safe distance, watching a car crash is shocking.

As you'll see in the video above, that was my experience at a recent visit to Euro NCAP – the safety organisation that Which? helped found in the 1990s. 

Read on to learn what I saw, how Euro NCAP is improving its tests and why my visit ultimately left me frustrated at the state of car safety tech.

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Up close: the Zeekr X crash test

The Zeekr X was dragged down the track towards an experimental crash barrier designed to simulate another car travelling at the same speed in the opposite direction.

At the moment of impact, the flash and explosive discharge of the airbags was the first thing we saw, followed a fraction of a second later by a stomach-churning sound that was a combination of airbag deployment and the crumpling of metal on metal from a 62mph combined speed impact.

Next came deafening silence from the crash site, followed by a 20-minute hold to ensure none of the batteries in the Zeekr X (an electric SUV that’s not currently available in the UK) ruptured and caught fire.

This wasn’t an ordinary Euro NCAP crash test; this was a few different experiments happening at once, including a brand-new dummy (a model female representing the fifth percentile of human size) and a new mobile crash barrier. These tests were in preparation for the safety body’s 2029 testing protocols; they’re thinking ahead.

Once the crash site was deemed safe, I gingerly walked down to the stricken vehicle.

All things considered, this car didn’t look too bad. Indeed, in its actual Euro NCAP crash test, this car achieved 91% for occupant crash protection. But the noise and visuals of the crash were a stark reminder that cars in motion carry enormous amounts of energy and that when they collide with other cars, people, cyclists, motorcyclists and animals.

This energy has nowhere to go but into either the car or whatever was unfortunate enough to be in its path.

A year in crash tests

As part of my visit, I also visited what is hands-down the most bizarre expo hall I’ve seen, with more than 100 crashed cars from Euro NCAP’s 2025 endeavours on display.

There were cars with chunks taken out of them, those that had been subjected to extreme side-impacts and even a car that’s something of a Which? celebrity: the MG3 whose front seat failed during a crash test last year.

 

Seeing all these cars was sobering to say the least, but also encouraging to see in person that even compact cars could now quite easily tolerate high-speed frontal and side impacts that occupants could realistically expect to survive.  

Later that day, I was at the wheel of a Ford Raptor pickup truck at its Lommel Proving Grounds in Belgium on a collision course with a child I couldn’t even see. I’d been instructed to keep my foot off the brake pedal, and even as the kid strolled out from behind a parked Puma, my car snapped into action, applying the anchors at full strength, stopping a couple of metres short of the blissfully ignorant robot child. 

Alarming, yes, but also reassuring that the safety kit that’s now required on all new cars genuinely is thoroughly tested and, at least in this case, works. Fortunately, I’ve never had the opportunity to test this particular feature in real life.

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The safety turn off?

Somewhat surprisingly, these experiences ultimately made me more frustrated at the state of car safety tech.

Car crash structures are the best they’ve ever been, and car tech is advancing all the time. But we reported on our survey last year that half of the people whose cars have advanced driver assist systems (ADAS) turn at least some of it off, some of the time. This includes basic features such as speed warnings, but also other functions such as automatic emergency braking and lane keep assist.

The problem is that although this stuff really works in emergencies, it’s been implemented overenthusiastically in a lot of cars in a way that is not only annoying and unhelpful, but also dangerous in some cases (such as on the MG4 before its software was updated).

It seems it's two steps forward, two steps back. We have the tools that can genuinely prevent crashes from ever happening, but they’re too finicky for drivers to want to use them.

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Future plans

Euro NCAP is updating its testing protocol this year in response to some manufacturers opting to design their cars to the letter of legislation and Euro NCAP test methods, rather than real-world use.

From July, all newly tested cars will go through a 2,000km drive on a random route through at least three randomly chosen European countries (including the UK) to assess the accuracy of their speed warnings (arguably the most annoying and least accurate of the compulsory safety features on modern cars).

During these drives, Euro NCAP (through an AI analysis firm called Ivex) will gather other data to understand – but not formally assess – the real-world behaviour of other systems, including lane keep assist and automatic braking. This data will then be used to assess cars from 2029 onwards.

For buyers, that’s a long time to wait for better driver assist systems. Indeed, the likes of car insurance risk analysis firm Thatcham already do this work in the UK. It appears change, somewhat ironically, moves slowly in the world of car safety legislation

In the meantime, I truly hope that manufacturers have learned from this first generation of compulsory ADAS systems to improve things well before 2029. Lives depend on it.