Just in case you are wondering why the Mazda CX-3 has two different crash safety ratings – four stars from Euro NCAP and five stars from ANCAP, here are the reasons why.

While there is a general guideline for all Global NCAP-affiliated organisations around the world - which includes ASEAN NCAP, Latin NCAP, ANCAP, Euro NCAP, JNCAP, C-NCAP and IIHS – each NCAP organisation has the liberty to introduce additional requirements which best reflects the requirements of consumers from its region.

The Euro NCAP for example, is located in a relatively wealthier part of the world. As such, it needs to introduce stricter requirements to keep the bar for a five-star rating sufficiently high.

Conversely, it is unrealistic to expect ASEAN NCAP or Latin NCAP, which are from developing markets, or even small markets like Australia and New Zealand (ANCAP) to adopt a similarly tough stance as Euro NCAP as doing so will only result in prohibitively expensive cars, which defeats Global NCAP’s purpose of making safer cars accessible to all.

Starting 2015, the requirements for a Euro NCAP five star rating have been made stricter with the introduction of a 50 km/h full width frontal collision test with a rigid barrier, using two smaller dummies representing smaller frame female occupants, seated front and behind.

Above: Full width frontal collision test with a rigid barrier

Above: 40 percent frontal offset test with an aluminium honeycomb deformable barrier.

In addition to that, the side barrier test now uses a larger, heavier impactor and the side pole test is made tougher by altering the angle of impact (from 90 degrees perpendicular to 15 degrees off perpendicular).

This is on top of the requirements introduced in 2014 that demands for advanced driver’s assistance features – autonomous emergency braking and lane departure warning - to be fitted in at least 50 percent of the cars sold.

Generally, one should avoid comparing test results that are more than two years old, as the requirements are likely to have changed, and also to avoid comparing results from different NCAP organisations as the tests conducted are different.

So just because Proton Preve scored a five stars in ANCAP in 2013, it doesn’t mean that it is better than the Mazda CX-3’s four stars rating from Euro NCAP in 2015.

We should also point out that NCAP is a consumer rights organisation. NCAP bodies does not enforce any laws and the tests are voluntary. Manufacturers can either sponsor a car for testing (vehicle to be chosen at random by staffs from the test lab) or wait for an NCAP body to purchase a vehicle for testing. NCAP tests are not compulsory.

Overview of the tests

As you can see from the table below, different countries have different areas of emphasis.