Euro NCAP wins road safety award for Safer Trucks programme

Euro NCAP’s Safer Trucks programme has received the 2025 Prince Michael International Road Safety Award, a recognition of its innovative work to bring independent safety ratings to heavy goods vehicles (HGVs).

According to Euro NCAP, this marks a pivotal moment for commercial vehicle safety in Europe and underlines the necessity of addressing all vehicle types in the drive toward Vision Zero.

The 2025 winners were honoured by HRH Prince Michael at a prestigious awards ceremony in London on Tuesday, 25th November.

While HGVs represent just three per cent of the vehicle fleet on European roads, statistics show that they are responsible for 15 per cent of road fatalities. Data further illustrates that 90 per cent of casualties in HGV crashes are rather vulnerable road users and not truck occupants.

These stark numbers highlight the urgent need for independent safety assessment and innovation in truck design. Vision Zero cannot be achieved without significant improvements to truck safety.

Euro NCAP launched the Safer Trucks initiative in 2024, releasing the first-ever independent safety ratings for HGVs. A year on, the programme has now achieved an increasing number of five-star results with more manufacturers actively engaging with the protocol.

Euro NCAP says the initiative not only empowers fleet buyers with clear safety information but also encourages industry-wide improvements.

The Safer Trucks programme is the first to implement Euro NCAP’s new Stages of Safety framework, which evaluates safety across the crash lifecycle:

• Safe Driving – assesses the vehicle technologies and features that assist in providing a safer driving experience for the driver and vehicle occupants.
• Crash Avoidance – measures the performance of advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) in preventing a wide range of collisions.
• Post-Crash Safety – evaluates the availability and usefulness of rescue information and the ease of occupant extrication after an accident.

Looking ahead to 2028, Euro NCAP is already expanding this framework to include full-width crash tests under the Crash Protection stage, a critical step toward evaluating passive safety in truck-to-car collisions and other collisions that involve vulnerable road users (VRUs).

Furthermore, the scope of testing will continue to grow to encompass tipper trucks, refuse trucks, delivery trucks, and other city-based utility vehicles.