Pretty damming - and highlighting what everyone already knew, that the punto is long past its sell by date.

https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/new-cars/fiat-punto-gets-euro-ncap’s-first-ever-zero-star-rating

That result is mainly because of the lack of nanny devices that ncap love so much. The actual crash safety itself is still fairly good.

Can't understand this,my wife's punto evo has 7 airbags .

Like I say, it's because NCAP place so much importance on driver aids these days.

Personally I think this says it all:

"Vauxhall clarified, explaining that upon launch, the Viva was a four-star car, but since then the car's lane departure warning was made an optional extra, instead of standard, decreasing the car's rating in the process. The system now costs £165 as an extra."

So lane departure warning is part of the NCAP? I think it's time something else got tested. At what point does "Requires the driver to steer, brake and accelerate" become a zero rating?

Note the quote from FIAT:

“Safety is of the utmost importance to the FCA group. When Punto was launched 12 years ago, it was the first 5* EURO NCAP car in its class. The importance of safety to the FCA group is demonstrated by the number of new models achieving 5*, for example Alfa Romeo Giulia, Alfa Romeo Stelvio and the Jeep Compass.”

elder81!!! How's your good self? Is the Panda still going?

This sort of thing is nothing new.

Cars have been rated like this for years and each step forward makes the previous results look bad.

We've all taken these steps for granted.
Some of us might not remember that cars were once sold without seat belts, with drum brakes all round and crossply tyres!

In my opinion, it can only be good.
Sure, we might think we're the best driver in the world and can live without these safety aids, but we don't share the roads with similar drivers.

Warms my heart to think the knobhead tailgating me down the motorway has radar brake support!

If any Punto owner is worried, take a look at some of the results of car built for other markets, like India.
They make a wet paper bag look rigid.


Stop this vid at 49 seconds, it's shocking and not an airbag in sight!

Oh, don't worry, I'll continue to feel safe in my Grande: its passive safety is good, and tbh, I just don't trust all these electronic nanny devices

Should have two scores one for safety devices and the other for the crash test scores
The one I think most people care about

NCAP need to be careful: if they put too much emphasis on driver aids, they run the risk of compromising passive safety.

There are actually four parts and four scores that make up the overall rating.
Adult Occupant
Child Occupant
Pedestrian
Safety Assist

The emphasis is on the first three and are what most would consider the crash test part, but some crash mitigation devices make up parts of these scores.

Things like automatic emergency braking, there is a big difference for everyone in a crash at 64kph than one at 20kph or actually stops before impact.
(most AEB systems can scrub off around 60kph approaching a stationary car, the actual NCAP frontal crash test is at 64kph)

So the tests take these devices into account.

In that scenario, it's about as passive as it gets for those involved, the car does it without input or resistance.

Most of us think about how safe a car is in a crash, but it's tested with the view of how safe is a car from a crash.

This worried my oldest boy, who runs a 2012 Punto, for a few minutes until we thought about it having been originally a five star qualifier. Shudder to think what Felicity - our recently deceased '92 Panda - would have been awarded. Minus 5 stars would probably have been optimistic!

I think all this safety stuff is probably a good thing on our crowded and aggressive roads where even the best and most careful driver can be caught out. Sorting some of the obscure faults it throws up can be frustrating and expensive though!

Perhaps someone should be introducing a "hazard" classification system for all the tech now in modern cars? My new (18 months old) daily driver has one of these info/interactive screens. Even for something as simple as tuning the radio I need to look at this screen for a dangerously long time. Consequently, unless I've turned it in before setting out, I simply don't use it. My old car's radio I could operate by touch. This new car also allows me to monitor quite a few engine (1.0 litre, 3 cylinder, turbo petrol) parameters on the dash display. Being a retired motor mechanic, I find this interesting and informative. Mostly I leave it set on water temp but I recently became obsessed with the oil temp on a trip Edinburgh to Devon. It was very interesting to see how it increased when climbing up over Shap - probably largely due to the turbo working hard. It's easy to also become distracted by the fuel consumption readout on long journeys as one is tempted to chase economy!

When you couple all these distractions with those offered by a mobile 'phone does it not make good sense to have anything which tempts you to take your eyes off the road, disabled as soon as the wheels start to turn?

Opinions anyone?

I completely agree: maybe if newer cars didn't have so much needlessly distracting technology, they wouldn't need all the driver aids.