Automotive safety tech to boost car sales

Ask any mum or dad what they look for when buying a car, and their top answer will be safety features. Now that they have a small brood in tow, they’ll be keen to keep their little darlings as safe as possible on every journey that they undertake, whether this is to swimming lessons on a Saturday or doing the school run.

As such, the automotive industry has started to invest astronomical amounts of money into developing technological advancements in its safety features. Take a look at these 21st century safety features that have been developed with an eye on boosting new car sales worldwide.

1. Autonomous emergency braking

While ABS has been around for years, enabling you to perform an emergency stop swiftly and without getting whiplash, the new AEB braking systems have gone one further. With sensors applied to the front of the vehicle, your AEB system can work out how close potential hazards are. If you are driving on a motorway, down a country road or even onto your drive, if an animal, human being or another car suddenly appears in front of you, your AEB will kick in before your human reflexes have a chance to, even if you do have a digital tachograph fitted to ensure you are driving at the correct speed limit. While this might not prevent a collision, it can seriously limit the chances of serious injury. This is a key safety feature that most car manufacturers, from Mercedes to Ford, are now utilising.

2. Blind spot detectors

The dreaded blind spot has been a niggling nightmare for all drivers since the dawn of time. While extended mirrors have helped, you don’t see many cars with them attached unless they are towing a caravan or a trailer. Instead, the more technologically advanced blind spot detectors have been developed.

With sensors added to the chassis of your vehicle, a warning light and sound can warn you of a vehicle in your blind spot if you are looking to change lanes, make a right turn or overtake another car. This has the added bonus of protecting other road users other than yourself, such as cyclists and motorbike riders.

3. Adaptive headlights

There has always been an element of control with your headlights. You can choose low beam or full beam depending on driving conditions, and you can always set the direction of the lights using a three tiered height system. However, in the 21st century, you can relinquish this control to a more intuitive system that manages your headlights for you. Adaptive headlights will always shine in the direction that your car is facing. This means there is less chance of blinding an oncoming driver. For those road users who share this safety feature with you, it also means less chance of you being blinded as well.

This also leads to safer journeys as hills and sharp corners can be spotted earlier on with your headlights pointing in the direction of travel at all times.

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4. Autonomous driving

A more seemingly futuristic safety feature is the concept of autonomous driving. To many, this does not seem like a safety feature at all, but simply a feature that pushes the boundaries of technological advancements. Every manufacturer wants to be the first to create the first self driving car. At the moment, Audi and BMW both have prototypes that suggest AI is no longer a thing of the automotive future.

Driverless cars can be a scary concept to get used to, especially for those people who like to be in control. People enjoy putting the pedal to the metal, feeling the horsepower and combating with the handling of their set of wheels. However, with auto braking, collision warnings, pedestrian sensors and cruise control assist, the technology that powers all of this gadgetry would deem itself safer than the human driver.

What many people cannot get their heads around are the intricacies of driving, from the odd roundabout to the quirky inner city road layouts. With GPS and satellite navigation, driverless cars are aiming to combat this with AI thinking. Imagine the best human driver with the fastest reflexes, defensive driving nature, ability to spot all hazards and no road rage. The driverless cars of the future aim to encapsulate this human into tech form.

Cars are vitally important to our lifestyles. However, for families, it’s less about the need for speed and aesthetics and more about safety when purchasing a new set of wheels.