Car buyers to benefit from global safety strategy

Car buyers to benefit from global safety strategy

By Russell Williamson

Indonesian car buyers will benefit as vehicle manufacturers
move closer to developing common worldwide crash safety
standards.

The move to a global safety strategy denotes carmakers and
governments' aims to reduce a global road toll of more than
500,000 people per year.

The pursuit of common standards was one issue discussed at an
international safety conference in Melbourne, Australia, earlier
this month.

Top vehicle engineers and designers from throughout the world
met to discuss the future of automotive safety at the 15th
International Technical Conference on the Enhanced Safety of
Vehicles.

With increasing development of world cars to be sold in
different markets across the globe, the conference focused on
harmonizing world automotive safety standards.

Indonesian consumers are only just beginning to benefit from
advances in safety technology, such as air bags and antilock
brakes which are slowly filtering down into smaller, cheaper
cars.

Although they have been available in luxury cars for some
time, such as Mercedes-Benz and BMWs, they have recently been
added to both Opel's Optima and Toyota Astra's Corolla.

The benefits of an increasingly global car manufacturing
industry and common safety standards would see further advances
in safety technology make their way into the Indonesian cars
sooner than previously experienced.

Up until recently, many carmakers used developing nations as
dumping grounds for cheaper, older, less safe and less
technologically-advanced cars.

However, many are now realizing the significant cost of road
deaths in both human terms and financial terms and are working to
ensure all consumers worldwide reap the benefits of safer cars.

Speaking at the conference opening, the administrator of the
National Highway Traffic Safety Administration of United States
(NHTSA), Dr. Ricardo Martinez, said some progress had already
been made on the issue.

He said meetings with various European safety agencies had led
to the tabling of several goals for compatible international
crash data collection and analysis.

This would, he said, aid the development of "harmonized
regulation through mutual research" and help to reduce the global
death toll from vehicle crashes.

In order to establish worldwide safety standards, he said
there were three processes which needed to be tackled.

The first of these was a greater sharing of crash data and
analysis between organizations to obtain a greater understanding
of what causes crashes and how to reduce injuries.

While the most visible data collection process for this is
seen in carmakers laboratory crash testing, greater depth of
knowledge is often achieved through analysis of real life
crashes.

Mercedes-Benz has been conducting real-life crash analysis for
25 years with the results highly evident in the levels of safety
in Mercedes cars.

Since 1969, accident researchers at the company's headquarters
in Stuttgart, Germany, have analyzed and reconstructed more than
2,700 crashes.

By examining the evidence at the scene of a crash and
reconstructing the sequence of events, body work damage and
injuries to occupants on a computer, the researchers are able to
produce a three-dimensional representation of the accident's
course.

This information is then used to develop new technologies in
occupant protection such as air bags and increasing the
structural integrity of the cars, and developing new crash tests
which simulate real-life accidents better.

Mercedes claims that since it began analysis of real life
crashes, the risk of being seriously injured in an accident in a
Mercedes car has fallen by more than half.

With human error being the cause of more than 90 percent of
all crashes, it is also important to ensure that human behavior
is looked into.

As part of this process, Dr. Martinez said the NHTSA was
establishing a state-of-the-art driving simulator in the U.S.
that would be able to analyze driver behavior under a wide range
of conditions.

He said the simulator would provide information and research
that will be available to other world safety research bodies. It
is expected to be operational by 1999.

With a greater understanding of the causes of crashes,
carmakers and governments will then be able to develop tests for
vehicles which are most appropriate to reduce injuries.

The other significant process in developing common world
automotive safety standards is through the biennial Enhanced
Safety of Vehicles conferences, being the premier forum for
exchange and dissemination of information.

It brings together safety engineers working in diverse areas,
such as advanced occupant protection systems, collision avoidance
systems, frontal and side impact protection, biomechanics and
crash test dummy designs and data collection and analysis.

This year, more than 230 papers were delivered to about 600
delegates during the four-day event.

In addition to focussing on safety standards, these
conferences also provide a forum for discussing new technologies
being developed for crash avoidance and occupant protection.

While many carmakers continue to examine the opportunities for
improved frontal impact protection through advanced occupant
protection systems, the focus is turning towards side impact and
roll-over protection and collision avoidance systems.

The head of Mercedes-Benz Accident Research, Dr. Falk Zeidler,
said the development of air bags had almost reached its zenith
with the arrival of "smart" bags.

Dr. Zeidler said Mercedes has already started installing smart
bags in the recently-launched SLK roadster.

The sensor which operates the passenger-side air bag
automatically detects whether a passenger is in the seat or
whether a child safety seat has been installed and will determine
whether the air bag should be deployed.

Dr. Zeidler said Mercedes was also working on crash avoidance
systems, including driver drowsiness detection systems. Such
systems would be in vehicles before the end of the decade.

He said electronic systems for crash avoidance would be the
next big step in reducing car crashes.

Unlike the slow flow-down of air bags from luxury cars to the
mass-market vehicles, avoidance systems would find their way into
volume production sooner, he said.

At the safety exhibition, which ran in conjunction with the
conference, Honda's Advanced Safety Vehicle (ASV-3) offered a
glimpse of what consumers can expect in the not-too-distant
future.

The ASV-3 is Honda's third generation of safety show cars,
with the first being seen in 1991.

The first ASV was designed to show off technology which could
be used to predict and prevent crashes by using an intelligent
navigation system.

This system included such things as an optimum route guidance
program which would direct the driver on the safest course
through traffic, an approaching corner warning function and an
active headlight system which would move the headlights to enable
the driver to see around bends in the road.

Also incorporated into the ASV-1 was an anti-dozing function
to alert drivers when they were losing concentration and an
automatic accident reporting function which uses cellular phone
technology to alert emergency services of a car crash.

ASV-2 moved even further into crash avoidance by using radar
technology to warn drivers when they were too close to another
car and apply the brakes automatically if a collision was
imminent.

ASV-3 takes the vehicle into a different area but one of vital
importance: reducing injuries for pedestrians in car crashes.

By using a more advanced active headlight system, drivers of
the ASV-3 would be able to see pedestrians more clearly at night.

Also, by installing a greater impact absorbing hood, bumper
and A-pillars, the severity of pedestrian injuries can be
reduced.

Mercedes and Honda are just two companies continuing to push
the boundaries in safety developments for cars which in the
longer term, will have enormous benefits for all road users.