Vehicle Safety

The automotive industry continues to be committed to the development of innovative, state of the art vehicle safety technologies.

The automobile industry is committed to the continued development and manufacture of safe automobiles. Vehicle manufacturers have taken a proactive role in enhancing vehicle crash avoidance capability and occupant protection by developing and introducing many new and innovative technologies. As an industry, automobile manufacturers have made remarkable progress through voluntary initiatives that improve overall safety for both vehicle occupants and pedestrians. Crash avoidance involves technologies such as anti-lock brakes, traction control, stability control and night vision. These are technologies designed to help motorists avoid collisions. Occupant Protection includes the development of technologies such as steel safety cages, energy absorbing crumple zones, airbags, seatbelts and energy absorbing steering columns, padded instrument panels and side door guide beams. Traffic fatalities and voluntary safety initiatives by decade. Fatality data from Transport Canada. (Click on picture to enlarge) The automotive industry’s development and extensive use of engineering analysis tools, such as vehicle crash simulations, has enabled detailed study of the dynamics of vehicle and occupant interactions during a collision and have resulted in the development of technological innovations and impressive safety advances. These voluntary improvements have had a profound effect on occupant protection and avoidance of serious injuries or fatalities of Canadians over the past 50 years.

Occupant protection isn’t one thing. It’s everything. (Click on picture to enlarge) Occupant Protection The automobile industry is committed to further enhance motor vehicle safety through development and introduction of safety advancements and refinements that provide real-world injury and fatality reduction benefits. It is the synergy of these improvements that has provided the real world safety benefit that Canadians are experiencing. With continued investment and improvements in engineering analysis tools, such as vehicle crash simulations, the auto-industry has been able to substantially increase the study of the dynamics of vehicle and occupant interactions during a collision. This activity has enabled them to substantially accelerate the development of innovative safety technologies that continue to result in impressive vehicle safety advances.

Some of the more recognizable voluntary initiatives that the automotive industry has evaluated and implemented are: 3 point belt systems (front and rear seats) Supplemental belt routers and anchor height adjusters (better belt fit) Advanced restraint systems with load limiting seat belts (“active” belt systems: i.e. pretensioners) Safety belt lights and buzzers to improve seat belt usage rates Automatic collision notification systems Further, the development and refinement of the use of supplemental inflatable safety devices (air bag systems) has taken occupant protection to new levels, otherwise thought to be unachievable: Frontal, side and curtain airbag systems Advanced airbag systems with occupant recognition/size discrimination controls The protection of young passengers is a significant focus for the automobile manufacturers and consequently numerous other advancements have been made: Automatic and remote door locks Child proof rear door locks (secondary mechanism) Power window lock-outs Emergency trunk release mechanisms Side impact protection

Vehicle Crash Avoidance. (Click on picture to enlarge) Vehicle Crash Avoidance Automotive engineers continue to focus on the operator interface with the vehicle and to develop innovative methods and devices to improve the drivers’ ability to operate the vehicle more safely in a variety of environmental conditions and situations:

ABS brakes, Traction control and stability enhancement Brake shift transmission and clutch ignition interlock Intermittent and moisture sensitive wiper systems Night vision Radio seek and scan button controls and redundant radio and climate controls on the steering wheel Heads up display: Driver information displayed in a hologram over the front hood Tire inflation warning systems Navigation systems with audio notification Side mirror turn signals, automatic headlamps and directional headlamp systems Parking assist systems Adaptive cruise control and forward assist systems that can activate steering, throttle and brake systems to help maintain preset following distance and lane control The automotive industry has pro-actively committed to Transport Canada to continue with extensive research on and use of design guidelines that address Driver Interactions with Advanced in-vehicle information and communication systems. The industry continues to be committed to the development of innovative, state of the art technologies that will make the Canadian driving experience amongst the safest in the world. Vehicle Crash Simulations Simulations are computer predictions of what happens in the real-world. Vehicle crash simulations use sophisticated computer simulations to predict vehicle impacts in collisions. These simulations are highly effective in predicting the collision outcomes as a greater number of crash scenarios can be tested and re-tested more quickly and at less expense compared with conventional vehicle safety crash tests. By using computer simulations, manufacturers are able to use the extensive knowledge derived from numerous crash scenarios to ultimately improve the safety performance of the vehicle. Advanced Airbag Systems Example of an Advanced Restraint System. (Click on picture to enlarge) Air bags saved more than 6500 lives from 1987-2000, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). When man landed on the moon in 1969, air bags weren’t yet available even as an option. More than 30 years later, all cars are equipped with dual airbags, and many have head and chest side air bags. In fact, the on-board computing power of today’s car is greater than all of the computers used in the Apollo lunar module! A vehicle’s safety devices are designed to work together as an integrated system and are accordingly interdependent. Incorrect use, removal or deactivation of one element compromises the effectiveness of the entire advanced restraint system. The schematic above illustrates how advanced restraint system function. Vehicle manufacturers are working hard to ensure there is a regulatory framework that supports the ability to manufacture a product that can be sold across the North American market. Manufacturing products for the larger North American market allows Canadians to benefit from economies of scale and thereby have access to the most sophisticated, technologically advanced and exhaustively test vehicles, at an affordable price. The vehicle safety systems in today’s motor vehicles are highly sophisticated and exhaustively tested - they have been proven to provide real world safety benefits to Canadian motorists. Always properly buckle up and stay safe!