Active Car Safety Systems: Modern Solutions to Modern Problems

By the mid 2000s, car manufacturer Volvo had gained a reputation as one of the safest cars in the world, with its class leading passenger protection systems and consistent 5 star crash ratings. A Volvo was seen as a sort of safety benchmark, and by extension, associated the Volvo brand with that of family car buyers who had the safety of their family at the forefront of their minds. While this reputation was cemented and unwavering, it never quite helped the Swedish automaker sell record numbers in Singapore, a place where other European marquee automakers seemed to have a foothold in the premium luxury segment. That being said, Volvo cars of old always seemed to look a little bit boring, and usually featured interiors that looked dated and did not age well. Perhaps it is unsurprising then that the Volvo brand never dominated sales in Singapore.

Fast forward to today, and car safety has taken on a very different perspective. Car safety technologies, as a subset of car technology, has quietly and steadily been improving and evolving across the industry, without much fanfare and attention from consumers. This is perhaps in part, due to the fact that consumers view safety as a point of parity in cars, rather than a selling point. It is no longer impressive to have achieved a 5 star crash test rating, but it is almost embarrassing if you don’t. I speculate that when it comes to crash ratings and passenger protection in the event of a nasty crash, safety technologies have reached a sort of ceiling for now, and there really isn’t much more to be said (unless NCAP introduces a 6 star rating). As such, there has been a shift in the way automakers are perceiving safety. Today, safety is not just regarded from the passive safety (protection) viewpoint, but also from the active safety (prevention) viewpoint, where active safety systems are engaged during your drive to prevent the car from even getting into an accident. While the acronyms and names given to some of the active safety systems can sound a little gimmicky and borderline indulgent, active safety is more pertinent today than ever, especially with cyclists now casually coasting onto the outer lanes of our local expressways. As the people on our roads get crazier and more distracted (on their phones), I figured it would be a good time to take a look at some commonly employed active safety systems in cars today.

Lane Departure Warning systems and Lane Keep Assist systems are essentially built in active safety tools in modern cars that are able to detect when a driver is unintentionally straying out of the lane, and are able to alert the driver through sounds or vibrations. The other way that lane straying is mitigated in some cars, is through lane keeping assistance instead of lane departure warnings, where the car detects the lines that border the lane, and will automatically perform minor adjustments to the car’s steering to keep the driver within the lane. Some systems are better built than others, and you might find that with the less developed systems, the lane keeping assistance can feel a bit like you are being bounced between the left and right side lanes of the lane (like a bad game of Pong). Truth be told, as drivers, we really shouldn’t need help to keep within our lanes, and to know when we are straying out of our own lanes. Unfortunately, with the influx of mobile phones being plastered onto our dashboards (every other car looks like a grab car these days), I guess such technologies still ultimately represent a positive inclusion to our daily driving environment. Apart from mobile phones being an obvious distraction to drivers today, I feel that fatigue is also fairly common among drivers today. After all, most of us keep busy and brutal schedules, amplified by a Singaporean’s trademark lack of sleep. To a certain extent, it is almost understandable why there are so many sleepy drivers on the road. While not foolproof, such systems definitely add an additional layer of mitigation that could potentially prevent a driver from drifting into the expressway railing or bushes.

A Blind Spot Monitoring System, as the name suggests, helps you to monitor when there is an oncoming vehicle in your blind spot. The idea then, is that when the driver sees their side view mirror light up with that little orange light, they do not change lanes into the path of an oncoming vehicle. Seems simple enough that we now have radars and detectors watching our blind spots for us, when in the past, we used to have to crane our necks to physically check the blind spots. I am sure many of you would remember exaggerating the neck craning during your driving test, so that your very senior tester doesn’t wrongly accuse you of the offense. - I certainly exaggerated my “check blind spot” sequence, even verbalising “checking” when I was about to execute the check. The thing with humans is that our brains are programmed to automatically derive shortcuts for efficiency, which is in some way, how muscle memory is derived, and why humans get complacent over prolonged periods of doing the same thing. The problem with modern blind spot monitoring systems is that for it to work as intended, it still relies on the driver’s decision to check for that warning light and exercise caution. Without said human discretion then, that orange light is basically just an empty warning that the driver doesn’t see or regard. Ironically, because the detection element of a blind spot monitoring system is automatic, many drivers today take a very complacent stance when handling blind spots, to the extent that too many drivers today utilise window blinds on the driver’s window, hiding their faces and essentially negating their ability to check for anything.

In a similar way that driver’s have their phones plastered to their dashboard, pedestrians today have their phones plastered to their faces. Whether it is a pedestrian strolling aimlessly across even though the green man has turned red, or a cyclist that darts across the pedestrian crossing when there are 3 seconds left on the timer (causing you to have to stop in the middle of crossing a junction during a discretionary green arrow turning), drivers today are plagued by more and more ridiculous road situations, exacerbated by the seemingly regressive wit of the common pedestrian. Modern problems call for modern solutions, which is the reason why we need collision warning systems and collision avoidance systems in our modern cars. These systems are once again active safety systems that use a combination of cameras and radars to monitor the situation ahead of us, and can assist the driver with braking and stopping to avoid an accident. In some cases, the systems are even advanced enough to activate evasive steering on behalf of the driver. Most days, despite being thoroughly annoyed at the pedestrian, we are able to stop on time (even squeeze in a honk or two). However, these systems are there to help us when we do not see the obstacles on time. Much like insurance, you are unlikely to require help from the safety systems on a daily basis, but you wouldn’t want to be without the safety systems when a situation really does arise.

In another pedestrian s**t show, it is extremely common these days to have pedestrians walk directly behind your car even when you have already started your reverse sequence into a car park - reverse lights blazing and all, causing you to have to slam your brakes to avoid hitting them. It doesn’t even matter if your car is already moving, the pedestrian will still walk behind your car. What I cannot wrap my head around is that in your standard shopping centre car park, you would imagine that the “pedestrians” walking around the carpark are also in fact, fellow drivers. Yet, once they have exited their vehicles, they no longer seem able to think from the perspective of a driver. Anyway - this is where cross traffic detection in modern car safety systems can be really useful. The system senses your surroundings, and lets you know when a person is near the back of your car while you are reversing, even before they enter your reverse camera’s field of vision. It is funny, because in the past, we were paying for safety technologies to ensure our own safety in the event of a collision. Today, we are paying to ensure the safety of other motorists and pedestrians (or rather so that we don’t personally get into trouble for hitting them).

Credits: