Auto manufacturers worldwide have made an effort to make cars a lot more safer. The impetus is due to government vehicle safety standards.Example: 10 years ago, three-quarter of the vehicles on the road did not have side impact airbags. Today about 10 percent do not have them. And 74 percent of cars and 100 percent of SUVs technologies are equipped with electronic stability control (ESC) systems. Studies show that, four years ago, more than 43,500 people died in road accidents. This year the number of fatalities will be under 35,000.
It is not just government mandates that are leading to safety innovations. Now consumers seem to be expecting the auto makers to come up with them. Studies have shown that consumers rank safety as their number two concern after reliability.
Many new safety technologies that only appeared on the luxury cars like lane departure and side collision warning systems, adaptive cruise control and driver alertness monitoring, are starting to trickle down into the more mainstream models.
Of course, parts suppliers assist the auto makers in the development of these systems. One major parts supplier involved in this is Continental. The company has announced that its goal is to reduce road accident fatalities to zero. And the execs of the company believe that it is time for the major auto makers to market their safety systems and integrate them into mid-size and smaller cars.
This is really the normal progression of things. As the cost of making a safety system drops, more and more of them will appear in mid-size and then smaller cars.
So watch for the more active safety technologies to work their way to the lesser expensive vehicles during the next few years. But also look for even newer technologies. Continental, for example, said that assisted steering systems meant to help a driver avoid a collision at the last second are coming soon.
via Detroit News
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