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Another Safety Innovation From Volvo
In the competitive automobile market, car manufacturers raise the bar in every aspect of vehicle design and production very often. Keeping up with the rest of the pack is essential for a car company to stay afloat and be a strong contender in the global market.
That is the reason why car manufacturers outdo themselves every chance they get and their cars receive improvements every year model. Newer car models are also introduced to the market loaded with features not present in its predecessors. This is true with regards to the safety aspect of the cars being produced today. Different companies exert effort and money to develop better safety features that will greatly help to protect their consumers in cases of collisions or crashes.
Volvo is one such company which puts in a lot of efforts to develop new safety features to be implemented on their mass produced cars. The Swedish outfit is the world’s best known producer of safe cars. Their vehicles always get good ratings on safety tests conducted by a government or a non-governmental agency. Volvo is known for prioritizing the safety of their consumers and that fact is one of the company’s strongest selling points emphasized when marketing their cars. In their long 80 years of existence, they have created a reputation as a manufacturer of safe cars which is now one of the major aspects car buyers are looking for.
The Ford Motor Company subsidiary already has a long list of safety features being employed by its cars in the market. As a matter of fact, their dedication to provide safe cars led them to create a facility dedicated solely in developing safety systems for their cars. And its investment is being paid off by the amount of development that the facility has been giving out. The Volvo Cars Safety Centre recently developed another safety feature that will be added to the already long list of safety oriented features that the company’s cars have. The latest in safety technology is called the City Safety by the company.
As suggested by its name, the safety feature comes handy in avoiding low-speed collisions that are so common in city traffic. The technology is simple enough to understand in theory. The system can sense if a collision is about to happen and depending on the situation, it can pre-charge the brakes or the vehicle can control the brakes itself with added stopping power from the Volvo brake booster through the activation of the hydraulic pump. The company hopes that this safety system will cut in half the number of low-speed collisions especially in crowded urban streets. The development of the system is based on the company’s safety center study which reveals that majority or 75 per cent of all collisions occur at speeds of up to 20 miles per hour.
The system works like a conventional radar system with its sensor integrated into the upper part of the windshield at about the same height as the interior rearview mirror. This optical radar system can monitor vehicles up to 20 feet in front of the car equipped with this system. The system takes into account the car’s speed and the distance between the car and the object in front of it. Its onboard computer calculates how much braking force is needed and primes the break if a collision is likely to happen. But if the speed at which the car is approaching the object in front of it surpasses a given level and there is no braking input from the driver, the system will activate the hydraulic pump to apply the brakes of the car.
The development of the City Safety system shows the company’s dedication in keeping their consumers safe and the application of the system on their mass produced cars will surely be welcomed.
About the Author: Glady Reign is a 32 year old is a consultant for an automotive firm based in Detroit, Mi. She is a native of the motor city and grew up around cars hence her expertise in the automotive field.
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