How Safe Is My Car?

Car safety has come a long way since Australia led the world by making seatbelts compulsory nationwide back in 1972.¹

Today, if you’re researching the best options for your teenager’s first car or perhaps considering upgrading your own, vehicle safety is likely to be one of the factors you’re weighing up – and there’s a lot to think about.

With car safety technology evolving,² you might think you’d need to be a motoring expert to answer the important question, “How safe is my car?” or, for that matter, “How safe is any new or used vehicle I’m considering?”

Not so. In Australia, there’s plenty of professional advice available, including car safety ratings systems so road users can benefit from safety improvements and hopefully buy a safe car.³

To help you navigate vehicle safety, we’ve developed this comprehensive guide on how modern car safety features might help avoid crashes and minimise the damage if the worst does happen,⁴ what 5-star ratings mean, important vehicle safety checks and more.

We’ll also explain the vital link between vehicle maintenance and overall road safety, and how your choice of car may even impact your car insurance premiums.

How safe is your car right now?

Whether you’re looking to buy a new or second hand car, or you’re curious about the safety of your current car, there are two programs in Australia that can help you to assess safety:⁵

• Australasian New Car Assessment Program (ANCAP) – A 5-star rating system for new cars, based on independent crash tests and on-road assessments⁶
• Used Car Safety Ratings (UCSR) – Produced by the Monash University Accident Research Centre (MUARC), this 5-star rating system is for second hand cars.⁷

You can check the safety rating of your car on the Transport Accident Commission’s How Safe Is Your Car? website, which will either give you an ANCAP or UCSR rating, depending on the vehicle.

Alternatively, you can go directly to ANCAP Safety or look up the latest UCSR reports from MUARC.

“The beauty of our ANCAP safety ratings is that you don’t need to know a lot about cars to make a safer choice,” says Carla Hoorweg, Chief Executive Officer of ANCAP Safety.

“We have a team of experts who have put over 1,000 new cars, SUVs, utes and vans to the test, and from that, we publish a simple star rating which shows which cars are the safest.”

Hoorweg says it’s important for drivers in all budget categories to aim for a 5-star rating.

“A car with a 5-star ANCAP safety rating provides the safest all-round performance. A vehicle with a zero-star rating offers very poor safety,” she explains.

How do vehicle safety ratings work?

The ANCAP and UCSR rating systems are both designed to make car safety simpler for everyday drivers.

For ANCAP ratings, vehicles are tested against four key areas:³

1. Safe driving

This category refers to features that can:⁸

• Help the driver remain alert
• Prevent distraction
• Assist with emergency steering
• Help maintain safe travelling speeds and distances from other vehicles.⁸

2. Crash avoidance

This includes technology that helps prevent or mitigate critical incidents through electronic warnings or autonomous intervention, such as:⁸

• Autonomous emergency braking (AEB)
• Lane support systems (LSS), including lane departure warnings that alert drivers if they veer outside of their lanes
• Low-speed collision prevention.⁸

3. Crash protection

To measure how a vehicle mitigates injuries to vehicle occupants, pedestrians and cyclists, cars are put through physical crash tests, simulating real on-road crashes, to assess:⁸

• Vehicle structure
• Seatbelts
• Airbags and head restraints.⁸

4. Post-crash measures

These include vehicle features that help emergency services workers safely rescue passengers, including a “rescue sheet” that provides important detail for first responders on the location of potential rescue hazards.^3,8

Vehicles can only get a 5-star rating by performing to the highest level in all four areas.³

Alongside the star rating for individual makes and models, ANCAP also publishes the year in which each vehicle was tested.³

“The more recent the year [of testing], the more safety features it [the vehicle] offers,” says Hoorweg.

“That’s because the criteria we use to test and rate cars broaden every few years to encourage car manufacturers to add more and better-performing safety features.”

For example, this might mean that a 5-star car from several years ago might not be any safer than a 4-star car built this year.

How do I check the safety features of a second hand car?

The UCSR ratings are based on real-world crash statistics, and analysis of police-reported crashes where someone was killed or injured.⁹

There are three key measures – driver safety, other road user safety and crash avoidance technologies – and the safest used cars are awarded “Safer Pick” status, says Dr Angelo D’Elia, a Research Fellow at MUARC.

“A vehicle cannot be classified as safe simply based on the presence of one or another system or design feature,” says Dr D’Elia. “All features and systems must function to create a safe vehicle overall.”

A look at the latest MUARC findings on how vehicle age can impact safety can make for sobering reading: If you have a crash in a car made in 2023, for example, your risk of death or serious injury is shown to be 43% less than if you’re in a 2001 model.¹⁰

What if I can’t find the safety rating of my car?

Not all vehicle models have been tested, so if yours is listed as “unrated”, that’s because its safety performance is unknown – and you can’t make assumptions based on previous generations of the same model.³

If you wish to look into it further, you can contact ANCAP directly.³

Key safety features to consider

A few decades ago, vehicle safety was all about hardware – think the physical features that help lessen the impact of a crash on passengers, such as seatbelts – mandatory on all seats from 1971 – and front airbags – standard in new cars from about 1990.⁴

Now, car safety has moved onto advanced driver assistance systems. Essentially, this is technology that helps avoid crashes and simply makes driving easier.¹¹

Dr Jamie Mackenzie, a Senior Research Fellow of the Centre for Automotive Safety Research at Adelaide University, says some of the most significant advancements in “collision avoidance technology” include:

• Electronic stability control (ESC): Detects when a vehicle is steering out of control and applies braking to individual tyres to help maintain stability²
• Autonomous emergency braking (AEB): Also known as Automatic or Automated Emergency Braking, this works to slow or stop your vehicle when approaching a stopped or slowed object¹²
• Blind spot monitoring (BSM) or blind spot warning (BSW): This alerts you if other vehicles are driving in your vehicle’s blind spots¹³
• Lane departure warning (LDW) or Lane Keeping Assistance (LKA): Returns your vehicle to its lane if you drift out without you indicating, helping you avoid potential collisions.¹⁴

You can also find simple descriptions of more than 30 other advanced driver assistance systems – from forward collision warning to automatic emergency steering – on Austroads’ ADAS Assist website.

What to check before buying a second hand car

If you’re buying a used car, consider carrying out a car history check to raise any potential red flags, such as previous crashes, or asking the seller for a fully documented service history of the vehicle. If a service history isn’t available, it’s worth keeping in mind that there may be problems that could have an impact on your safety.⁵

Best car safety features for different drivers

For any driver, the expert advice is simple – buy the newest, safest car you can afford.⁵

However, some safety features may be even more important for some categories of drivers. Below are some specific features singled out by MUARC, Austroads and Automotive Safety Research that you may wish to consider.

Why vehicle maintenance matters

It’s one thing to have safety features in your car, but it’s another to make sure they’re in good working order.

“Regular maintenance and servicing of a vehicle is important to ensure that a vehicle functions safely on the road, exactly as designed,” says MUARC’s Dr D’Elia.

“This includes checking and maintaining critical base elements essential to road safety.”

Dr D’Elia says these safety features include:

• Braking system
• Steering and handling
• Tyres
• Windows and external lighting
• Electronic Stability Control (ESC)
• Autonomous Emergency Braking (AEB)
• Lane Keeping Assist (LKA)
• Restraint systems including airbags and seatbelts.

Additionally, some safety features can degrade over time if not maintained regularly, notes Dr Mackenzie – and some drivers might not realise they’re compensating for that.

“For example, a vehicle’s brake performance may degrade over time with a driver learning to brake earlier or harder when slowing down,” explains Dr Mackenzie.

“Unfortunately, in an emergency situation that loss of brake performance can be the difference between avoiding a crash versus a serious injury.”

It’s also a good idea to check your owner’s manual for advice on how often to have your car serviced, including how often you should rotate your tyres. As a general rule of thumb, cars should be serviced every six months, or after 10,000 kilometres travelled – whichever comes first.¹⁷

Can safer cars affect insurance costs?

It’s possible. As with any type of insurance, some insurers may offer a cheaper premium when you take steps to reduce your risk.¹⁸

Vehicle technologies such as autonomous emergency braking (AEB), blind-spot monitoring and lane-support systems can help to reduce the risk of a crash.¹⁹

The flip side is that sophisticated cars, with more advanced safety technology, will generally cost more to replace or repair. With the average cost of new and used cars increasing by more than 30% since 2019, replacing write-offs – which accounts for about one quarter of total car insurance claim costs in Australia – becomes more expensive too.²⁰

“There are many factors that influence the pricing of car insurance premiums, including the make and model of your car, where it’s parked, and your age and driving history,” says Jackson.

Now that you hopefully have a better idea of what makes a vehicle genuinely safe, it could also be worth reviewing how your car’s features, usage and risk profile might affect your car insurance options. Consider starting a quote with Youi or giving us a call on 13 9684.

¹Source: Australian Car Mechanic – Australia’s history of automotive seat belt safety, October 2025
²Source: Transport Accident Commission – Drivers, n.d.
³Source: ANCAP Safety – What do the star ratings mean?, n.d.
⁴Source: Australian Government – National Road Safety Annual Progress Report 2023, May 2024
⁵Source: Transport Victoria – Your car and your safety, n.d.
⁶Source: ANCAP Safety – About ANCAP, n.d.
⁷Source: Vehicle Safety Research Group – Used Car Safety Ratings, n.d.
⁸Source: ANCAP Safety – How Are Vehicles Tested for Safety?, n.d.
⁹Source: Transport Accident Commission How Safe is Your Car – Ratings Explained, n.d.
¹⁰Source: Monash University Accident Research Centre – 2025 Used Car Safety Ratings reveal safest second-hand vehicles and the first electric ‘Safer Pick’, November 2025
¹¹Source: Austroads ADAS Assist – Vehicle technology made easy, n.d.
¹²Source: Austroads ADAS Assist – Automatic Emergency Braking, n.d.
¹³Source: Austroads ADAS Assist – Blind Spot Warning, n.d.
¹⁴Source: Austroads ADAS Assist – Lane Keeping and Centring Assistance, n.d.
¹⁵Source: Austroads ADAS Assist – Child Presence Detection, n.d.
¹⁶Source: Australian Government – Electric vehicle batteries and motors, n.d.
¹⁷Source: carsales – How often should I service my car?, n.d.
¹⁸Source: Insurance Council of Australia – Premiums explained, n.d.
¹⁹Source: NSW Government – Vehicle safety features, n.d.
²⁰Source: Insurance Council of Australia – Insurance industry releases motor insurance roadmap, March 2025