The New Ford Focus Receives Two NCAP Safety Awards

The new Ford Focus has won two NCAP Advanced rewards, recognising the Active City Stop and Lane Keeping Aid technologies.

Active City Stop is a technology which monitors the road and if a collision is imminent, it will brake automatically. At speeds of up to 20mph a Light Detection And Ranging (lidar) sensor, which is located at the top of the windscreen, scans the area ahead (up to 7.6 metres) for any possible impacts. When approaching any obstacles in front of the car, the system calculates that if a collision is likely, the brakes are pre-charged, if no evasive action is undertaken by the driver, such as braking or steering, the Focus will automatically apply the brakes and reduces engine torque.

For the Lane Keeping Aid, a camera at the top of the windscreen monitors lane markings - typically solid or dashed white lines - to calculate the car's position on the road relative to the lines. If an unintentional lane departure is detected, torque is applied to the steering wheel in order to alert the driver. The system can also recognise manoeuvres such as overtaking.

Both Active City Stop and Lane Keeping Aid technologies are automatically active, but can manually be deactivated by a switch on the indicator stalk.

The Ford Focus also received the maximum NCAP five star crash safety rating, including the top score for child protection in frontal and side impact collision tests, as well as the adult and pedestrian safety categories.

The Ford Focus has been crash-tested in over 12,000 real and virtual world scenarios, ensuring the best possible protection for occupants.

With 55% of the body shell being made of high strength steel, 31% is ultra-tough boron steel, the most in any Ford built to date. The A-pillars, B-Pillars, rocker panels and door reinforcement beams feature Boron, creating a rigid crush-resistant passenger cell.

A patented front chassis subframe de-couples in sever frontal impacts, which avoids deformation in the passenger cell footwell area. Pedestrian protection has been improved with the use of a "soft" cowl design in front body structure. The windscreen wiper system has also been moved to reduce injury risk.

Ford's Intelligent Protection System restraint system features in the new Ford Focus, and includes next-generation front airbags for driver and passenger, and unique side airbags for all passengers, with should vents which stay open and reduce pressure for smaller occupants.