Over the past decade there’s been a huge increase in advanced car safety systems in automobiles. In fact, many owners of vehicles with these features say they have helped them avoid a crash one way or another. These safety systems use a combination of cameras, radars, and sensors to process what is happening on the road using its onboard computers. Because of this, they can respond often faster than the human driver. They can brake, give steering input, and maintain a safe speed and distance, all with minimal input from the driver. In 2019 there are many car safety features that are now coming standard, and we’ve decided to list the top 5 features below…
1. Forward Collision Warning (FCW)
Today’s automobiles come with warnings for rear, side, and front collisions. FCW provides a visual, audible, and/or tactile warning about an impending collision. Some automobiles will even react itself by initiating the automatica emergency braking system (AEB) if the driver does not react to the impending collision. It’s important to note that AEB comes in two forms: city speed and highway speed, so choose according to your driving needs.
2. Blind Spot Warning (BSW)
As the name suggests this technology will warn about what’s potentially in your blind spot. Like the FCW, BSW will give a visual and audible alert when the driver activates their turn signal with a motorist already in the lane next to them. So far, this has been a highly recommended safety feature that makes lane changes safer.
3. Pothole Protection
While a different safety feature from the first two, this can come in handy for drivers who live in cities with unkept roads. How it works is it detects when a wheel is dropping into a hole and adjusts the shock absorbers to reduce the impact. While it can be uncomfortable for drivers to road on a bumpy road, this feature mainly protects the car itself from damage which can be a bonus in the long run.
4. Teen Driver System
Easily one of the neatest safety features today, some automobiles, like Chevrolet’s Malibu, are being built with a “teen driver” system that can do things like mute the auto volume until occupants buckle up, set off alerts if the car is driven over the pre-set speed limit, and generate an in-vehicle report that shows how many times the cars safety features were activated. Definitely a must have for drivers who let their teens use their cars.
5. Safety Alert Seat
And finally is the Safety Alert Seat. So far, we’ve mentioned that a lot of the new safety features come in visual and audio warnings, but sometimes people can miss those. This has led to the invention of a car seat that will vibrate when one of the safety warnings is activated; A warning that is definitely harder to ignore.
And that’s the top 5 best safety features today. While cars are always coming out with new features that seemingly distract us more (like wide screens and internet access) it’s good to know they’re some cars being made to keep us safer.