How Your Car Can Be Safer

Car safety has come a long way in recent decades, from seat belts and air safety bags to blind spot monitoring technology. Still, other drivers remain the biggest threat on the road.

Anticipating what other drivers might do can help you prevent accidents. Be mindful to abide by the 3- to 4-second rule to give yourself plenty of time to brake or stop in case something unexpectedly occurs in front of you.

Blind Spot Warning

An extra glance in your outside and inside mirrors or over your shoulder can often suffice to detect an approaching car, however failing to see one in your blind spot on a fast-moving highway could result in an accident. Blind-spot warning systems may help minimize this risk by monitoring what lies behind and near your vehicle.

Driver assistance features such as this use sensors mounted to either your side mirrors or rear bumper to detect other vehicles in adjacent lanes, with some systems also using light, audible alerts or vibration (depending on make and model) as an aid when overtaking another car.

These systems should not replace looking over your shoulder when changing lanes or backing out of parking spaces. Always consult your mirrors regularly; however, if an audible alert informs you of another car in your blind spot, using such systems could be useful.

Lane Departure Warning

Unintentional lane departure is one of the leading causes of collisions, and lane departure warning systems use cameras to monitor lane markings and warn when you drift near, onto, or over them. Some even vibrate your steering wheel or seat (a haptic signal) when they detect that your reaction time to prevent an unintended lane departure is insufficient.

Some lane departure warning systems feature brake applications that help keep you within your lane. These features may also come combined with a lane centering assist feature which automatically corrects steering or acceleration to keep the car from crossing over an imaginary lane line.

As useful as these systems can be, they’re not failsafe. False alarms may occur from time to time and their alerts won’t help if you are fatigued or distracted; to effectively avoid lane departure and its potential injuries, drivers must always remain focused and pay full attention while driving. Ignoring warning signals could result in serious accidents.

Lane Keeping Assist

Instead of simply alerting you of the possibility that you might veer off course unwittingly, lane keeping assist systems provide semi-autonomous correction for you. They use steering and braking mechanisms to gently “pull” back towards their center lane.

These systems usually operate by monitoring painted lane markings on the road and when your distance from them drops below a predefined threshold level, countersteering or braking individual wheels in order to keep you within your lane of travel.

Still in control of your vehicle, and can change or cancel its function by manually nudging the wheel yourself. Furthermore, this system becomes inactive if you turn on your turn signal or change lanes.

Lane-keeping assistance systems have become more prevalent in modern cars, often included as part of safety packs on certain models. carwow offers trusted dealers for new cars offering this technology at great deals.

Pedestrian Detection

Pedestrian detection uses advanced computer sensors to allow your car to “see” people on or near the road, which when coupled with automatic emergency braking can significantly decrease pedestrian deaths and injuries. A car accident lawyer helps if you are injured in a pedestrian accident.

CR’s evaluation of four midsize sedans equipped with pedestrian detection demonstrates inconsistent results. When testing simulating an adult crossing the road at 20 mph during daytime hours at 20 mph, these systems were found to avoid collision 40% of the time; but when testing simulating either children darting out between cars or adults walking alongside roads at 30 mph no test vehicle avoided or mitigated collision.

No matter if your vehicle has this feature or not, pedestrian detection systems cannot replace driver vigilance in terms of being aware or vigilant behind the wheel, particularly at night when most pedestrian fatalities take place. Therefore, Consumer Reports does not honor them with an award from Top Safety Pick.