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Ensuring riding comfort with safety features
Safety of the future: A Daihatsu MPV Hybrid car called the HY Fun is on display at the 2019 Gaikindo Indonesia International Auto Show (GIIAS) in ICE BSD City, South Tangerang, Banten
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afety of the future: A Daihatsu MPV Hybrid car called the HY Fun is on display at the 2019 Gaikindo Indonesia International Auto Show (GIIAS) in ICE BSD City, South Tangerang, Banten. Car security features, including those introduced by Hy Fun, also attracted visitors.(JP/Dhoni Setiawan)
A road traffic slogan says, “You can’t go home, until you’re safe”.
To Hermansyah, 40, the slogan serves as a good reminder since driving from home to work and vice versa is part of his daily routine.
“I think safe driving is something that should be taken very seriously and could be a matter of life and death,” says the father of two.
He also acknowledges, however, that fatigue from lack of sleep or sleep deprivation can disrupt his concentration. Under such circumstances, driving is taken for granted, which is not good, he says.
Hermansyah says being sleepy and his inability to fully concentrate when driving has caused dangerous driving experiences.
He says that he once had to work overtime, which had left him sleep deprived. “On my way home, I had hit the car in front of me, causing severe damage to the rear of the car,” he says, recollecting.
“The car that I crashed into was a new one and I had to pay to fix it because it was my fault. I was sleepy and forgot to step on the brakes,” he says.
Hermansyah is not alone. The inability to concentrate due to lack of sleep on the part of drivers when driving has become a cause of road accidents.
Safe driving and car technology play a pivotal part in this regard. The world of car safety has made leaps and bounds in line with digital transformation trends. Automatic emergency braking (AEB) is expected to provide a solution to human factor-caused traffic accidents.
Driving a car equipped with AEB might help sleepy drivers like Hermansyah avert accidents because a car will automatically apply its brakes when it detects an object in front of it to avoid or lessen the severity of a crash. In other words, if a car fitted with AEB senses a potential collision and the driver does not react in time, the car will start braking on its own.
Apart from AEB, car enthusiasts can also find the latest forward sensor technology, adaptive cruise control (ACC). The close and inconstant distance between a car in front and another one in the back can also lead to an accident, especially when the car in front breaks suddenly or reduces speed. The ACC enables drivers to maintain a constant distance from the car in front, up to our chosen maximum speed. If the front car slows, our car automatically follows suit. And when it speeds up, we do likewise.
There is also electronic stability control (ESC), one of the most important recent developments in vehicle safety. ESC is software that can automatically reduce engine power and, depending on the individual system fitted, operate individual brakes, should it detect the car is about to lose stability or is at risk of skidding.
Independent studies have shown that ESC could prevent up to a third of all road accidents. It’s such an important development that manufacturers are now required by law to install, according to Forbes magazine.
Other acronyms used by manufacturers include ASC, DSC, DTSC, ESP, ESP+, VDC, VSA and VSC. Each may have a subtly different method of operation, but all operate to keep the car on its intended path, should the wheels be at risk of losing grip due to slippery conditions or the driver’s inputs.
Another outstanding feature of the cutting-edge car safety feature is that it provides a warning system. For example, lane assist or lane keep. The system, commonly equipped in premium cars, alerts drivers when they drift out of a motorway lane.
Blind spot detection picks up what we might have missed and also warns drivers of vehicles approaching from the rear by shining small orange or yellow lights in their door mirrors.
On the list of the cutting-edge car safety features include lane departure warning, rear and front parking sonar, the rear traffic alert and parking cameras. These cameras range from rear-only, to four cameras providing a birds-eye view of the car as drivers snake in and out of tight spaces.
Although drivers’ health is important when it comes to safe driving, leading car safety features are expected to ensure drivers’ comfort and help prevent road accidents.
