THE new Renault Megane has achieved the top safety score in the latest round of EuroNCAP crash tests.
It joins the Nissan Qashqai as the only two vehicles to achieve the maximum 37 points and becomes the 11th Renault to earn the five-star rating.
The Megane's list of safety features include twin side-impact sensors, six airbags including two twin-chamber thorax/groin airbags, the Renault System for Restraint and Protection that combines pretensioners and load limiters with twin-stage dual-chamber adaptive front airbags, new-generation headrests, emergency brake distribution, electronic stability programme with anti-skid regulation and additional understeer control.
The new Mégane uses what the industry refers to as 'very, very high elastic steels' for absorbing and dissipating as much kinetic energy as possible.
Controlled deformation ensures that occupants are subjected to lower deceleration forces and coupled with the third-generation System for Restraint and Protection achieves an extremely high level of protection.
Special attention has been paid to protection against side impacts, which are a major cause of deaths in urban accidents and account for one-third of all road accidents.
To help prevent accidents from happening at all, the Megane has tyre pressure monitoring, cruise control and speed limiter, automatically activated headlights and windscreen wipers plus bi-xenon directional headlights to help see around corners.
Renault is the only vehicle manufacturer to have secured the five-star top rating 11 times