The all-new Subaru Forester, launched here last year, has received a five star ANCAP rating, realising 94% in adult occupant protection.

The all-new Subaru Forester has finally been assessed by ANCAP which today announced a five-star rating for the SUV. This is now the fourth-generation of Forester that’s received a five-star ANCAP rating.

In announcing the results, ANCAP Chief Executive, James Goodwin said, “It is encouraging to see brands like Subaru prioritising and progressively increasing safety for its customers.

“We are continually increasing the standards required for new vehicles to achieve 5 stars to provide the marketplace with the safest vehicles possible.”

The Subaru Forester scored:

• 94% – Adult Occupant Protection
• 86% – Child Occupant Protection
• 80% – Vulnerable Road User Protection
• 78% – Safety Assist

“The Forester scored full points for the physical protection of child occupants in both side and frontal impact tests,” Goodwin added.

The Subaru Forester, as standard, gets Subaru’s EyeSight system which includes autonomous emergency braking, lane keep assist, and adaptive cruise control. Move up from the entry-level tester and EyeSight adds reverse automatic braking and both front and side view monitors and also the new Driver Monitoring System.

All variants feature torque vectoring which works to brake the inner wheels when cornering to effectively push the vehicle back in towards the corner. There’s also a reversing camera and parking sensors, permanent all-wheel drive and X-Mode, manual speed limiter, and dual front, side, driver’s knee and curtain airbags.

The seatbelt is also able to determine the size of the driver and passengers to adapt the “energy absorption load” for the seatbelt, and all seatbelts except the middle rear belt get a locking tongue which helps to spread load more evenly through the belt in a collision. This is a simple and clever piece of engineering that more car makers should be using.