How do manufacturers make cars safe




















This is one way Honda continues to improve its seat belts, airbags, seats, dash materials—items that don't require the destruction of a whole car. Of course, as with all other carmakers, Honda still runs full-scale tests in a cavernous clean room where actual cars are flung into various barriers under blinding lights, the impact recorded and dissected in super slo-mo.

This is how carmakers test rollovers, side impacts, and small-overlap front-end collisions, which focus on the car's right- and left-front corners. The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety began running small-overlap tests in in response to statistics that roughly one-quarter of front-end collisions involving serious or fatal injury fit this criteria—a car drifting into the oncoming lane catches the fender of an oncoming vehicle or goes off the road and clips a signpost.

These are particularly nasty impacts because they don't engage the full crash structure of the front end. Instead, they tear through the vulnerable corners, sometimes forcing the front-left wheel into the driver's footwell.

When the IIHS began evaluating small-overlap performance, the Volkswagen CC became the first car ever to have its driver-side door sheared completely off during a test. In yet another room at Honda's testing facility, mechanical arms launch plastic dummy heads into the interiors of two Acura RDXs. Every piece of the cabin is optimized to deform and cushion a blow, from the headliner to the plastic coat hangers above the windows. On the three test noggins are the names given to each dummy: Larry, Moe, and Curly.

A full-size dummy named Polar II stands in for people during pedestrian-impact tests. He helped Honda develop a better design for its windshield wipers. The answer is a breakaway wiper system. While crash performance is still critically important, much of today's safety research concerns the relatively new field of active accident avoidance. The revolution, which has already started, is with collision avoidance—auto braking, steering, and autonomous driving.

Self-steering cars are the next frontier. The past two years saw the introduction of self-steering in the Lincoln MKZ, Infiniti Q50, and Mercedes-Benz S-Class, each of which can make steering corrections at highway speeds to help maintain the car's position in a lane.

Currently these systems demand involvement from the driver; when the S-Class determines that the driver hasn't made a steering input in 16 seconds, the car shuts down its lane-keeping assistance. Lane keeping works to prevent inattentive drivers from drifting over the centerline or into the flank of an adjacent wheeler, but that basic, limited functionality could soon be capable of taking over for long stretches of highway driving.

Vehicles that can brake on their own or steer themselves aren't equipped with any one magic technology. Even small degrees of autonomy rely on a network of multiple sensors that are already used for the various active safety systems in a car, such as blind-spot or forward-collision alerts.

Because each of these electronic systems relies on different technologies with different strengths, tying them together is the key to making a car semiautonomous and, maybe even one day, fully autonomous or driverless. By using both together we get an accurate picture of the obstacles and what they are. Nissan claims it will offer an autonomous car by Audi's piloted driving system, which can handle highway driving, is on track for release in three to five years.

And in , drivers in Gothenburg, Sweden, will begin conducting their daily commutes in autonomous Volvos, part of a real-world research project that furthers Volvo's stated goal of zero fatalities or major injuries in its cars by And, of course, Google continues to work on its driverless cars, which have covered so many miles without a major accident that states are scrambling to create laws to address this new category of vehicle.

While there are plenty of reasons to be skeptical about how soon a production driverless car could hit public roads—legal and insurance issues being just two—automotive experts remain optimistic. Remember when I had to steer on the freeways? Capp led research and development on Cadillac's upcoming Super Cruise system.

Super Cruise takes over steering and pedal operations in certain highway conditions by using lane-keeping assistance paired with active cruise control, which together help a car maintain a set distance behind another vehicle without the driver having to apply the gas or brakes.

These advanced systems blur the line between safety and luxury—when the car takes a share of stress away from the driver, safety moves to the foreground of your daily experience.

As automakers bring smarter cars to market, the government has been testing out technology that allows for vehicle-to-vehicle V2V communication. Greg Winfree is the assistant secretary for research and innovative technology with the U. Department of Transportation, which announced plans in February to pursue getting the technology it's been testing into production cars.

If cars can relay speed, braking, and position information to each other, then they'll be able to register potentially hazardous situations almost instantaneously, warning the driver visually, audibly, or with the rumble of the seat or steering wheel.

And if cars are equipped to brake and steer on their own, predictive accident avoidance becomes possible: Your car could take action to avoid an unfolding situation that you can't yet see. This intercar chat will happen on the 5. Headlights improve vision after the sun sets, and adaptive headlights help take visibility a step farther.

Finally, when considering car safety features, consider traction control. This is an electronic control system that limits how much the wheels can spin when you are accelerating. This means that the wheels will have maximum traction, even in wet or slippery conditions. Traction control systems are typically paired with the antilock brake system to put the brakes on when a wheel starts spinning too quickly, routing power to the opposite wheel to prevent skidding.

No matter how many safety features your car has, you can still be involved in a crash. If you are involved in a car crash and suffer injuries as a result, The Law Offices of Jacob Emrani offers the services of a car accident attorney in Los Angeles who can help fight for your rights so you can get the compensation you deserve as you focus on your recovery.

Contact us today! Antilock Brakes Antilock brakes prevent the wheels from locking when you hit the brakes quickly. The Safety Assist score is determined by various rigorous tests which include:. There can be little question that Euro NCAP continues to play a vital role within the industry — not only through their vigorous testing procedures but also by encouraging car manufacturers to elevate their vehicle safety standards voluntarily.

These are required for all cars being sold in the EU. While manufacturers can design their cars as they best see fit, there are currently very few safety features required by law — and this is perhaps surprising given the very high standards they must still adhere to.

In fact, under UN Regulations 14 and 16, the only set requirements are the fitment and performance of seat belts, together with a car driver seat belt reminder system. That said, the EU is likely to announce further requirements during These could well include crash test improvements for occupant safety and seat belt reminders for all occupants, not just the driver. All new vehicles sold across both the UK and Europe must meet certain minimum requirements for occupant safety, and these are currently subject to crash tests which are carried out by independent testing authorities.

As you might expect, different standards apply to different categories of vehicle, all of which are more specifically detailed within the General Safety Regulations.

At present, different regions across the globe have their own set of standards to adhere to.



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