TransportationWe've now reached a new phase in automotive safety. For several decades, it's been about reducing the chance of serious injury or death in a crash. Things like airbags, anti-lock brakes and crumple zones assume collisions are inevitable. Now, we're on the cusp of drastically reducing that probability.
Subaru has added this amazing technology called EyeSight to its cars.
Subaru and IIHS
Cameras mounted near the top of the car's windshield watch for obstacles up ahead and warn the driver. If the driver doesn't respond, the car stops itself.
The Subaru Legacy and Outback equipped with EyeSight both earned the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety's top crash avoidance rating recently, but here's the game-changing part: the IIHS - the same agency that helped make crash test dummies famous - is now testing crash avoidance.
That's big, and here's why: if enough automakers succeed at designing cars that can successfully, and autonomously avoid a collision, accident rates will fall, and eventually, so will insurance premiums.
But - there's another upside!
Crash avoidance technology is also helping steer the auto industry toward self-driving vehicles. These safety features use strategically mounted cameras and sensors to help the vehicle interact with its surroundings. We now have cars that can tell you when you're drifting into another lane, they can tell you if another car is in your blind spot, and many have active cruise control, which monitors the distance between you and the vehicle up ahead.
All of these are precursors to vehicles that will eventually drive themselves. Mercedes is nailing this right now with the new S-Class:
Thankfully, it's not just passenger cars that are benefitting from this technology.
Now that the IIHS is ranking vehicles for how well they avoid crashes, we can expect more automakers to bring this technology to market, and eventually see our roads become a much safer place.