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While accident data show a decreasing number of fatalities and serious injuries on European Union (EU) roads, recent data from ERSO (European Road Safety Observatory) show an increasing proportion of elderly in the fatality statistics. Due to the continuous increase of life expectancy in Europe and other highly-developed countries, the elderly make up a higher number of drivers and other road users such as bicyclists and pedestrians whose mobility needs and habits have been changing over recent years. Moreover, due to their greater vulnerability, the elderly are more likely to be seriously injured in any given accident than younger people. With the goal of improving the safety mobility of the elderly, the SENIORS Project, funded by the European Commission, is investigating and assessing the injury reduction that can be achieved through innovative tools and safety systems.

In the 70’s, to reduce vehicle crash fatalities, NHTSA launched a Program, called NCAP, to compare the safety of cars. This Program was copied in Europe and around the world. It has been demonstrated that this kind of public assessment has forced OEM’s to invest in safety and to develop safer vehicles. Nowadays, NCAPs exist for nearly all regions around the world; all of them with the aim of improving vehicle safety. They apply the philosophy of an “overall rating”. In that way the information aims to be clearer and more general and will help to compare cars. Nevertheless, even though in every NCAP the overall assessment is given by a unique star rating, the specifications and requirements in each protocol are different. Each NCAP has been adapted to each region’s conditions, accidentology and traffic and therefore assessment criteria have their own peculiarities.