Some of the car safety features we take for granted weren’t added or made mandatory until relatively recently in automobile history. For example, seatbelts didn’t become standard features in the U.S. It’s now estimated that seatbelts save more than 15,000 American lives each year and that nearly 2,600 people would be alive if they’d been wearing their seatbelts during the accident.
Car safety features have come a long way since the original lap belts became law in the late 60s. Automobile manufacturers continue developing safety features to minimize accidents and protect public safety. However, some of them are better proven than others.
Standard features are just that, and automakers continue improving them as well. However, in the past ten years, innovations and self-driving features have continued to roll out of the automobile shops. It’s not easy to discern which are worth ordering or paying more for and which need more improvements before becoming standard.
Here are seven proven auto safety features worth paying a little more for. But, remember: none of these are better than an attentive, defensive driver. So, while the following features may improve road safety, drivers must do their best to pay attention to the road ahead of them.
Anti-lock braking systems have been around for a while. Now there’s another level of emergency braking features worth looking for. These features detect when a pedestrian, animal, or other object enters the field. If the driver doesn’t slow down or try to stop, these autonomous brake features signal a warning and slow/stop the car for you if you don’t react quickly enough.
These same sensors, all part of the automatic driver features emerging on higher-end vehicles, also provide a forward collision warning. If your eyes are looking left or right when the car or truck in front of you stops, forward collision warning systems help to prevent a rear-end collision.
The combination of forward collision alerts, extra seconds to hit the brakes (or for the brakes to engage for you) and the benefits of ABS should minimize the number of road collisions and reduce the impact of unavoidable accidents.
Rear-end cameras feeding to a console screen became popular in the early 2000s. Now, they are standard features. Automakers now improve on that technology, offering full 360-degree vision around the car. And, the next wave of innovation includes overhead vision, so drivers get a better view of what is going on around them.
These overhead vision cameras help most in tight parking situations or sticky traffic, giving you more than just the wonky rearview camera perspective, which isn’t always best for those with depth perception or spatial challenges.
Here in the Bay Area, there has been a fair amount of road construction leading to intersections with red flashing lights. These depend on drivers who remember how to navigate four way stops from their driving school days, combined with drivers who are paying attention. If anything throws that off course, like four-way intersections with lots of left turn lanes, bad weather or slick roads, or distracted drivers, inevitable collisions ensue.
Intersection scanning AEB is an upgraded version of autonomous braking features. The car has better 360 visibility and scans the intersection for cars that didn’t stop or that proceed out of turn. If you don’t brake or alter course, the car works to avoid a collision.
Airbags may not feel all that great when they deploy and aren’t safe for all passengers (such as children and those under a certain weight minimum). However, for the most part, front and side airbags drastically minimize traumatic injuries due to impact. The NHTSA estimates the combination of seatbelts and frontal airbags saved 50,457 lives between 1987 and 2017. Today, car manufacturers also offer center airbags.
Center airbags blow up and create a buffer between the driver and passenger seat. Some deploy from the rear passenger seats, but most modern cars have center airbags that emerge from the driver’s seat. In rollover or side impact collisions, center airbags prevent driver and passenger heads from crashing together, which can cause traumatic brain injuries, lacerations, and skull/facial fractures.
It’s harder to see in the dark regardless of streetlights and headlights. About 4% of adult drivers have bonafide night blindness, and far more than that have a more challenging time seeing clearly during twilight and nighttime hours. Combine that with other risk factors, like nighttime fatigue, distracted driving, or driving after a drink or two, and it’s easy to understand the importance of having night vision features.
This feature shifts the screen on the dash into black-and-white, implements a thermographic camera, and displays red-hued highlights around warm objects and bodies (other cars, motorcycles, humans, pets, and other animals, etc.). Currently, night vision features are only available from luxury car manufacturers, like Volkswagen, Cadillac, Mercedes-Benz, BMW, and Audi). Eventually, we foresee this becoming another industry standard.
Some of our clients can’t stand these sensitive warnings, which sound the alarm when the vehicle gets too close to either side of lane lines. However, cell phones, distracted, and fatigued driving is top factors in lane-drifting-related accidents. The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) reports:
Single-vehicle crashes in which vehicles left the roadway accounted for 40 percent of fatal crashes and 21 percent of nonfatal injury crashes in 2014. Head-on collisions and sideswipes, which also can be caused by lane departures, accounted for another 12 percent of fatal crashes and 10 percent of injury crashes.
So, it’s no wonder that lane departure and lane-keeping assist features are effective at both alerting you to your own drifting, or sounding the alarm when a vehicle near you is drifting.
Are you in the market for a new car? J&T Towing knows just how important these safety features are in reducing accidents or minimizing their impacts. We’re here for you when you need us, but we’d far rather provide roadside assistance or bring you some extra gas than tow your car after being involved in an avoidable accident. Look for these features when purchasing your next vehicle, and then do your best to keep your eyes on the road!
