Volvo: 100% safe car by 2020
Wed May 7, 2008 11:42AM EDT
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With all the talk of terrorism, Avian flu, and mid-air plane crashes, it's always important to step back and remind ourselves that auto accidents are one of the most likely causes of death in this country and around the world, and that improving car safety is one of the easiest ways to increase life expectancy.
Volvo, a company legendary for its efforts in attempting to make cars safer (they invented the three-point seatbelt and side-impact airbags, after all), has now said it wants to eliminate auto injuries altogether by 2020. No, you won't be able to pull a Thelma and Louise and drive your car off a cliff or ride it into the ocean and expect to come out of it unscathed, but for almost all road accidents, Volvo's working to end fatalities and injuries... or prevent the accidents before they happen.
To reach this goal, Volvo's taking a broad approach the issue. Automatic braking systems and other computerized equipment that intervenes when a driver has lost control is being developed to help mitigate injuries: Reducing the average car's speed by about 10 miles per hour before a crash would halve the fatality rate, says Claes Tingvall, head of the Swedish road administration's traffic safety division. A complex collection of radar and sonar systems will maintain constant awareness of what's around the car at all times, letting it react in an instant if, say, a driver suddenly swerves into your lane. (Naturally, it would help if all the cars on the road have the same technology installed.)
Just as much of Volvo's research takes place in the test lab, simulating hundreds of crashes with test dummies and figuring out how best to engineer a car to crumple in just the right way so the driver and passengers aren't injured if an accident does occur. Auto-tightening seatbelts and airbags are additional, crucial aids, making sure the driver stays in one place and surrounded by something soft instead of steel.
Think Volvo can do it in 12 short years? As Wired notes in its analysis, that's but a heartbeat in the automotive world.
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2 Posted by middlenamefrank on Wed May 7, 2008 3:10PM EDT Report Abuse
I'm an EE, and while I applaud Volvo's initiative in integrating the whole car to reduce accidents, my mind boggles at the complexity of the task. Keep in mind the goal has to be having a positive impact on accident injury rates while never impinging on the driver's control of the car until it's absolutely necessary. If the car is ever perceived to be driving itself in all but the most dire circumstances, there are going to be a LOT of unhappy people out there, to the point that car sales may drop badly.
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3 Posted by lacroix32911 on Wed May 7, 2008 4:03PM EDT Report Abuse
Optimus DS-5080 Digital Camera i don;t have the cd for it and can't get the web cam to work the other part for pictures work fine
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4 Posted by agustin2489 on Wed May 7, 2008 4:30PM EDT Report Abuse
It's optimistic to say the least. I don't really think it a perfect idea though. rogueist makes a bit of a point by saying that automatic braking could be a problem and I think it would take a lot of fine tuning to find the best region to brake at.
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5 Posted by cokroach on Thu May 8, 2008 11:18AM EDT Report Abuse
Concentrate on the real problem. Teach PEOPLE to drive cars.
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1 Posted by rogueist on Wed May 7, 2008 2:41PM EDT Report Abuse
I can see the first "automated" accident already - a 100 car pileup with 50 dead. While in theory this may be great, out in reality, it is a totally different story. Automatic braking during highway conditions will lead to a fatality probably 60% of the time - but not necessarily of the person in the car that brakes, but rather in the car behind them that slams into them because of the unexpected braking. If ALL the cars on the road had the same technology installed in them, THEN it is possible to mitigate the damage through an automatic multi-car braking. Otherwise, the Volvo will then become the #1 killer car on the road. Volvo would have to give this technology away for free to every car manufacturer in the world, AND make after-market devices to reverse-equip older vehicles as well in order to make this work. I can understand now why the parent company is so hot to sell off the Volvo division as swiftly as possible.