Cool Safety Features To Look For On Your Next Car Purchase

Posted by at 5 May 2017, at 10 : 03 AM

Cool Safety Features To Look For On Your Next Car Purchase

In the past two decades, road traffic accidents and fatalities have declined. This is mainly due to cars becoming safer, and more safety features being developed and installed all the time. When you’re in control of essentially a very large piece of machinery (that goes incredibly fast!) it makes sense that you would choose a model which offers excellent safety features. Here are a few cool things to look out for, and potentially add to your wish list when you buy your next car.

Auto Emergency Braking

Auto emergency braking (AEB) systems work to alert the driver when a crash is imminent, and even activate the brakes independently if the situation requires it. Using a mixture of sensors, radar, lasers, and cameras it detects collisions and works to protect against them. It works on other vehicles, pedestrians, and other hazards- and has been shown to both prevent crashes, and reduce the impact of those that do still hit. It only kicks in when the situation is critical, and so the driver remains responsible at all times. But it’s a useful safety feature to have, and can give you that bit of added peace of mind. This feature is known under different names by different car brands, so if ‘auto emergency braking’ isn’t listed, it may well still have it but called something else. For example on Audis it’s called Pre Sense Plus, on BMW it’s called Driving Assistant Plus, and on Ford, it’s called Active City Stop.

Curtain Airbags

While regular airbags can save lives, they only protect from front impact. In a side impact crash (or if the car rolls over) there’s nothing to cushion your head meaning you could hit the side window or objects like trees and poles. Since side impact crashes account for over a fifth of all crash types, this isn’t a flaw to be overlooked. If you have personally experienced a crash like this, companies like The Brown Firm can guide you on what to do next. Curtain airbags are useful since they inflate to cover the entire side windows of the car protecting the driver and passengers in both the front and back. They can reduce side impact drivers deaths by up to forty percent- and who wouldn’t want those kinds of odds in their favor?

Electronic Stability Control

Electric stability control (ESC) detects when the car is skidding and losing control and automatically applies the brakes. This can help to ‘steer’ the car to where the driver is intending on going. It can counter both oversteering and understeering by braking the wheels individually. If you live in a colder climate or even if ice is just a problem over the winter, this is a great feature to have.

Intelligent Speed Assist

Speeding kills and is something you have to be very careful of as a driver, as sometimes it’s easy to get carried away with speed. Maybe you don’t know the roads and aren’t sure of the limit, and sometimes roads can appear to be 40mph roads, but they’re only 30. Intelligent speed assist (ISA) alerts the driver when they go over the limit but giving audio and visual warnings. It gives you peace of mind that you’re not accidentally going too quick, and it will ensure you never get a speeding ticket! Some systems even come with a speed limiting function, making it hard to drive any quicker over the limit. These are particularly useful for younger drivers, and as a parent could give you peace of mind when your teenager is on the road.

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