Tokyo, May 10, 2000 - Honda Motor Co., Ltd. unveiled its indoor omnidirectional Real World Crash Test Facility, completed this year at Honda R & D Co., Ltd.'s Tochigi R&D Center. The new facility makes car-to-car crash testing possible in all directions, regardless of the weather. Honda also announced goals for the development of new crash safety technology.

Honda is building on safety advances such as its G-Force Control Technology, designed to reduce injuries and assure a safe survival space for vehicle occupants in the event of an accident. The highly crashworthy car bodies Honda has developed with this technology pass Honda's own demanding testing, withstanding a fixed barrier full frontal collision at 55 km/h and a frontal offset collision at 64 km/h. The company is now selling a wide range of cars built to this high standard of safety.

As a result of years of studying traffic accidents, Honda has progressed to the analysis of issues that cannot be resolved simply with fixed barrier tests, which are only capable of simulating car- to-car collisions involving cars of the same weight. The company has therefore now independently designed a complex variety of car-to-car crash tests that emulate approximately 60% of fatal traffic accidents.

To attain a new standard in crash safety, Honda has established a new test - a 50% frontal offset collision with a 2-ton car, with both cars traveling at 50km/h as the initial target, and 55 km/h as the second step. Honda plans to use the new indoor, omnidirectional crash test facility to conduct this and similarly demanding tests as an important new part of the company's ongoing effort to produce vehicles that can withstand real-world traffic accidents.

Developing technology that reduces injuries resulting from collisions is only one aspect of traffic safety. Honda is also continuing its research and development in active safety technology -- technology that helps prevent accidents. An impressive case in point is HIDS (Honda Intelligent Driver Support), a system that utilizes a host of "smart" technologies to alleviate the driver's workload during high-speed freeway driving. HIDS is implemented in the second iteration of Honda's ASV (Advanced Safety Vehicle). In addition, Honda's multifaceted traffic safety research program includes driver education, an important part of the company's comprehensive effort to make driving safer.