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Although the number of annual car collisions reported in the U.S. is declining, an alarming amount of fatalities remain that may have been prevented. According to the U.S. Department of Transportation’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), nearly 6 million car accidents happen in the U.S. annually, killing over 38,000 citizens. However, due to recent technological improvements in the transportation industry, which increase vehicle safety, auto collisions continue to decline. Recent technological improvements can help ensure you and your family remain safe. Take a look at recent technological advancements when considering purchasing a new vehicle. New innovative car technology and safety features can help reduce the risk of you getting into an accident and incurring damages, as well as practicing safe driving habits and ensuring that you hold adequate car insurance.
However, accidents can still happen despite technological advancements drastically improving driving safety. Have you been involved in an auto collision? Contact Ali Awad, ‘The CEO Lawyer’ and his team of experienced personal injury attorneys at the CEO Lawyer Personal Injury Law Firm by calling (833) 254-2923 or contacting us online to receive your free and confidential case evaluation. Attorney Ali Awad, ‘the CEO Lawyer,’ established the CEO Lawyer Personal Injury Law Firm and quickly turned it into one of the fastest-growing law firms in the country. If we take your case, you won’t pay anything until we win.
Which Car Features Prevent Accidents?
Many new car safety features available on the market today may reduce accidents from occuring. Newer vehicles often have safety suite umbrella packages installed aimed to prevent accidents. These safety suites may include several safety features or semi-autonomous driving hardware. We will explore some of the new car safety features available on the market below.
Car Safety Features
New advances in vehicle technology have made driving safer and even more hassle-free. Car safety technology continues to expand as vehicles become more technologically advanced. Car safety features that prevent accidents may include:
Active Park Assist
Active park assist is technology that will park your car with little-to-no driver interference. Most newer vehicles have perpendicular and parallel parking assist available.
Adaptive Cruise Control
Adaptive cruise control is a cruise control function that can be set to various distances, such as 1 to 2 car lengths. Once set, the cruise control will automatically adapt to driving conditions, including stop-and-go traffic.
Adaptive Headlights
Self-adapting headlights shine as other standard headlights would shine, but these headlights will ensure that you will never be driving in too much darkness. These new and improved headlights are very bright and efficient and will automatically adapt to driving conditions such as curves, lack of streetlights, and car speed.
Automatic Emergency Braking
Automatic braking is available on some vehicles to engage the breaks if a collision is impending. The brakes will be applied automatically if the vehicle detects a pedestrian or car, whether the vehicle is in forward motion or reverse.
Automatic Emergency Steering
Automatic steering will assist the driver with avoiding impact with an object, such as a deer, by safely steering around the object.
Blind Spot Detection
Blight spot detection is a handy new feature that will alert you by giving you a notification if another driver heads into your blind spot, drastically reducing the chance of becoming involved in a lane-change collision. Blind spot detection features function by using radar sensors or cameras for detection. If your vehicle does not have radar or camera blind spot detection capabilities, you may opt to have this feature installed by a professional.
Bluetooth Voice Control
Although Bluetooth car capabilities have been around for some time, keeping your hands free during driving is essential. In fact, many states have now come to pass distracted driving laws prohibiting the use of cell phones while driving.
Electronic Stability Control
Electronic stability control (ESC) technology helps stop a vehicle from sliding out of control in riskier weather conditions, reducing the chance of a skidding accident.
Lane Departure Warning System, Lane-Keep Assist, and Lane Centering
Another new technological feature that aids in preventing accidents is the lane departure warning system technology. This technology will alert you if you are drifting out of your lane. Akin to rumble strips that jolt a driver who may be drowsy, lane departure warning system technology is designed to alarm you if you are unintentionally drifting out of your lane. Newer technologies such as lane-keep assist and lane centering will automatically keep your vehicle in optimal lane positioning and will correct any deviances automatically.
Night Vision
Night vision technology utilizes thermal imaging to detect heat from objects in the dark such as animals or pedestrians, which may be unnoticeable to the naked eye aiding in the prevention of accidents.
Rear Cross-Traffic Alert
This alert functions to inform the driver if there is perpendicular traffic coming up behind them as they are backing out.
Surround-View Camera
Similar to a backup camera, a surround view-camera gives the driver a birds-eye view of their vehicle and surrounding area. Some luxury vehicles can even create a 3D model of your vehicle that you may pan around to see the car’s location in relation to the surrounding environment.
Traction Control Systems
In slippery conditions such as rain or winter weather, traction control technology can prevent the wheels from spinning while accelerating on roads that don’t have good traction. This may prevent instability, leading to crashes.
What Other Technologies Can Improve a Cars Safety?
Safety Suites
Modern vehicles often come with packaged safety technologies, or “safety suites,” made by their manufacturers. Safety suites may include all or some of the safety features mentioned previously in this article. Some present-day safety suites include:
- Acura – AcuraWatch
- Ford/Lincoln – CoPilot 360
- Honda – Honda Sensing
- Lexus – Lexus Safety System+ 2.0
- Nissan – Safety Shield 360
- Subaru – EyeSight
- Toyota – Safety Sense 2.0
Safe Driving Apps & Features
Today, numerous safe driving apps are available in addition to car safety features. Some may even impact your car insurance rates and help you become a safer driver. There are several different types of vehicle safety apps. These safe driving apps include:
- Lifesaver – This app can lock a phone as soon as a vehicle begins moving. This app can also notify parents when a child has arrived safely.
- Samsung’s In-Traffic Reply – If you have a Samsung device, this app will activate if you are traveling over 6 MPH and can notify any texters with a preset message that you are driving.
- Drive Mode, Drive Save, and Do Not Disturb are all cellular features or apps that may silence incoming notifications and auto-reply to texts to indicate to the sender that the driver is unavailable.
- An app called TextNinja will reward drivers with points that can be redeemed later on for car miles driven without cell phone use.
- Similar to TextNinja, SafeDrive will reward you with points for not using your phone while driving, which drivers can redeem for discounts on purchased items from partnering companies.
Insurance Apps
Many insurers are now offering incentives to drivers to download an app or install a device on their vehicle that monitors customers’ driving habits. These apps and devices can track when you drive, your speed, acceleration habits, your braking habits, and more. Safe driving may be rewarded with lower rates and discounts. Progressive, Allstate, State Farm, and other insurance companies are beginning to use safe driving technology to encourage drivers to keep safe driving habits.
Teen Safety Apps
In addition to safe driving apps to prevent distracted driving and encourage safe driving habits, there have been several new apps developed aimed at improving teen driving safety, such as:
- Life 360 – This app will allow parents to track the driving of each family member, such as top speed, routes, speed monitoring, and phone usage while driving.
- Lifesaver – This app can lock a phone as soon as a vehicle begins moving. This app can also notify parents when a child has arrived safely.
- The Milez app will reward teens for routes driven without cell phone use by transferring money from their parent’s bank account for every 200 miles driven without using a cell phone.
Car Technology News
Major players in the transportation and technology industries are working towards the manufacturing and perfection of self-driving automobiles. Companies such as Google (Waymo & Uber) and Tesla are competing to create the first fully autonomous car. Self-driving vehicles will be able to replace a human driver entirely and will be able to act, think, and perceive much like a human using high-tech devices such as computers, controllers, and cameras. It is believed that these self-driving vehicles will have a massive impact on our future lifestyles and safety. These technologies are believed to have the capacity to outperform humans when detecting danger and responding appropriately, eliminating present-day issues such as driving under the influence or distracted driving. As a result, these vehicles are likely to drastically reduce accidents and accident-caused fatalities. Furthermore, these intelligent algorithms will detect the fastest route, consume less fuel, and drive more efficiently while providing humans more time to relax or be productive.
Presently, self-driving cars have not entered the mainstream market due to their requirement of having very detailed and precise street and surrounding mapping, which will require more time to develop. Additionally, software engineers are still fine-tuning the machine algorithms to detect all possible traffic situations. At present, all self-driving vehicles need to be monitored to intervene if a car makes an error. Below find some current smart car & self-driving technology news.
- Amazon creates a patented delivery robot and self-driving lane switching technology with intentions to put 100k electric delivery vehicles out in the next several years. Amazon has also helped fund a self-driving company founded by former Tesla and Google employees.
- Apple has over 70 self-driving cars in use in California and has bought a self-driving vehicle startup.
- Aptiv has completed 100,000 self-driving taxi rides in Singapore, Pittsburgh, Boston, and Las Vegas.
- Audi debuts their first hands-free driving vehicle, the A8, and discloses plans to invest 16 billion dollars into self-driving technology.
- Azure cloud services by Microsoft are being utilized by companies developing self-driving vehicles.
- Cisco is tirelessly working on creating an advanced data layer required for smart car technology.
- Ford has publicly announced that self-driving cars will be available soon.
- Toyota is working on technology that will allow self-driving features to kick in when a driver is about to make a mistake, referred to as “guardian angel” tech.
Which Car Technologies Cause Distractions?
Regarding car technology, not all innovations have led to improved safety. New car technologies, which are often screen-based instead of knobs and dials, may take more visual time off the road. While some companies have instituted voice-activated auto features to help diminish distraction, sometimes these features can malfunction, causing more distraction. Furthermore, with new self-driving technologies, people have become reliant on autopilot functions that have not been optimally developed. While in the future, people may be able to utilize autopilot car functions without paying attention to driving conditions, this car technology is not advanced enough to bypass human interference entirely. For example, recently in Arizona, a woman was “murdered” by a self-driving vehicle engineered by Tesla that failed to stop while she was crossing the road (and hit her at 40mph). Additionally, while many vehicle features have become hands-free, this does not eliminate the distraction from driving entirely, as the driver remains cognitively distracted.
While many people look forward to future times where cars may be fully autonomous, at this point, drivers must remain engaged in driving tasks to ensure that they keep themselves and others safe. Distracted driving still holds negative implications and leads to thousands of needless deaths annually in the United States alone. Technology is now being developed, implemented, and honed to allow drivers to detect and avoid dangers and further support automated driving systems. Soon all aspects of driving may be able to be taken over by self-driving vehicles. Currently, the National Highway Traffic Safety Association is working with tech and transportation companies testing and developing these advanced vehicles with the goal of saving lives.
Car Accident Attorney
Has a distracted driver injured you or a loved one? If so, do not wait to contact the experienced car accident personal injuries attorneys at the CEO Lawyer Personal Injury Law Firm. Call us today at (833) 254-2923 or contact us online to receive your free and confidential case evaluation to explore your legal options.
While fully automated vehicles may remain years away from being available to the general public, safety behind the wheel still rests with each of us and is our responsibility to maintain. Although today’s technology may give drivers some extra assistance, it is our job to ensure that we keep ourselves and each other safe. If you have been injured due to another driver’s negligence, it should not be your burden to be responsible for your damages. Contact Ali Awad, ‘The CEO Lawyer’, and his team of experienced attorneys today to see what we can do to assist you.