The Latest Auto Safety Technology
Recent Safety Advances You'll Soon See in Showrooms
Few features are as important on new cars as the latest safety features. Manufacturers have leveraged auto safety technology to make driving less risky and to differentiate their products. Safety sells, but it can also earn customers for life, notes auto safety expert Paul V. Sheridan. By constantly raising the bar in terms of auto safety technology — and saving lives and limbs — car companies win or lose long-term customer loyalty, Sheridan explains.
The latest auto safety technologies include: BMW 7 series’ Active Blind Spot Detection, which gives visual warnings on the side mirrors like other blind spot monitoring systems, but also vibrates the steering wheel to warn drivers when they decide to change lanes anyway. BMW also offers Night Vision with Pedestrian Detection, which adds pedestrian detection to distinguish between a human and an animal, shows the position and direction a pedestrian is heading, issues a warning on the in-dash monitor used to display night vision, and pops up on a head-up display if the car is equipped with that option.
Chrysler's Cross Path Detection System uses radar sensors in the rear bumper to watch your back and determine whether vehicles are in your path, and sounds an alarm and flashes visual indicators in the side mirrors to warn you, depending from which side a vehicle is approaching. Ford offers Cross Traffic Alert, in which radar sensors in a vehicle's rear bumper watch for traffic from behind while a driver blindly backs out of a parking space and audible and visual warning on the side mirror to indicate from which side the traffic is headed. Ford also recently introduced MyKey, a system that allows parents to limit a vehicle's top speed and stereo system volume when an inexperienced driver is behind the wheel.
Infiniti offers the Around View Monitor, which uses four wide-angle cameras, one on each side, to provide a 360-degree view around the vehicle and displays images on an in-dash monitor. Mercedes-Benz has a host of new safety technologies, including Attention Assist, which analyzes various factors to determine whether a driver is too tired to operate a vehicle safely and "remembers" a driver's normal behavior behind the wheel to establish a baseline. Also, Mercedes' Night View Assist Plus adds the ability to spot pedestrians more easily. It does this by using software that distinguishes humans in the dark and highlights their presence on an in-dash display. Volvo’s City Safety Technology (CST) is designed to avoid fender-benders in stop-and-go urban driving. It uses an infrared laser sensor to monitor the distance to the vehicle in front of the car, and if needed, activates the brakes to stop the car in time.
