Thatcham Research has announced the safest new cars of 2017 as well as the finalists for the What Car? Safety Award. The independent research centre has produced a list of ten cars taken from the 2016 Euro NCAP ratings. All of these vehicles meet the strict criteria for the award, which includes track-based testing of collision avoidance systems and achieving a top marks in crash tests as part of the 5 star rating system.

To qualify standard safety technology fitted must include; AEB (Autonomous Emergency Braking), as well as some form of lane keeping technology. All of the finalist also feature Pedestrian, low speed City and high speed Inter-Urban AEB as standard. The list is made up of; 

• Alfa Romeo Giulia
• Audi Q2
• Ford Edge
• Hyundai Ioniq
• Mercedes-Benz E-Class
• Peugeot 3008
• Renault Scenic
• Seat Ateca
• Toyota Prius
• VW Tiguan

Thatcham Research Chief Executive, Peter Shaw, said, “These ten vehicles represent some of the safest cars on sale today, and we are delighted to see that by raising awareness of the important issues surrounding vehicle safety, manufacturers are starting to rise to our challenge of fitting safety as standard across all models, regardless of segment or price.”

The overall Euro NCAP scores are however lower than last year, driven by tougher tests and the more mainstream nature of the vehicles involved. 2016’s winner, the Volvo XC90 achieved one of the highest scores ever seen in the history of the Euro NCAP test schemes history.