Passive safety systems are going to have to get a lot more active if we want them to save more lives and reduce injuries, Mercedes-Benz says.
Safety engineers at the German luxury car company "believe that most of the potential in passive safety technology has now been exploited and that further advances will require new concepts."
According to JoAnne Caza, manager of marketing for Mercedes-Benz of Canada, this means we need "a vehicle that can detect an imminent collision and engage occupant protection systems before it occurs."
This is exactly what Mercedes will show off at the Frankfurt motor show in early September, in the Pre-Safe "experimental safety concept that combines hazard-detection technology currently in use in Mercedes-Benz passenger vehicles with new types of seatbelt tensioners and automatically adjusting seats."
Future versions of the concept would also include active body structure and interior components, Caza says, but the versions of sensor systems and actual protective components in the Pre-Safe concept are good enough to be evaluated in test vehicles.
Mercedes wants to take advantage of the time lag between a driver's recognition of an impending impact and the impact itself — which their research in Germany suggests happens in two-thirds of all crashes — to activate the vehicle's protection systems.