ADAS technology (Advanced Driver Assistance Systems) holds great promise to reduce road safety risks significantly; however, choosing and training are crucial components to its success.
Some ADAS features are becoming standard on new vehicles. Lane centering assist, for example, goes beyond warnings by actively steering your car in a safer direction.
Lane Keeping Assist
Lane-keeping technology will be an immense help to drivers who spend most of their time driving on highways. As an early step toward autonomous cars, systems like Toyota Safety Sense-P or GM Super Cruise work to keep vehicles within their intended lane.
This feature, known as Lane Departure Warning or Lane Assist, uses cameras to recognize road lane markings and can detect when you have drifted out of one without using your turn signal. Once this occurs, steering correction and/or braking may be employed in order to nudge back your vehicle into its appropriate lane.
If you don’t want the system to intervene, you have several ways of overriding its decisions. Adjust the sensitivity of sensors that warn you and decide how often. Some systems even let you set how much intervention should occur – this feature has already become standard on many cars and it will only become more so over time.
Forward Collision Warning
Rear-end collisions are one of the most frequent forms of crashes and often happen when drivers are distracted or have trouble seeing objects nearby. Forward collision warning systems (FCWs) help drivers prevent rear-end accidents by constantly monitoring your driving path directly ahead of your vehicle with radar, lasers and cameras detecting obstacles such as vehicles or obstacles in your driving path, then alert you with visual, audible and/or haptic feedback when potential frontal collisions are detected – they even precharge brakes to ensure they work when used upon application!
Autonomous Emergency Braking (AEB), on the other hand, takes over control of both brakes and steering if a driver does not respond quickly enough, while forward collision warning systems (FCWs) simply provide warning. They cannot react quickly enough to unexpected events or changes in road conditions so don’t rely solely on FCW or AEB systems as your only safety feature. Car and Driver’s tracker shows FCW and AEB can be standard on certain models while others lack these optional extras altogether.
Rear Cross-Traffic Alert
Backing out of a parking space can be dangerous when traffic approaches from either direction. Rear Cross-Traffic Alert can help drivers avoid these accidents by detecting oncoming vehicles, cyclists, and pedestrians before issuing visual and audible warnings to warn of potential danger.
Rear Cross-Traffic Alert can be combined with a 360deg surround view camera to give drivers full awareness of their surroundings, which is especially helpful when parking in large lots where it’s easy to be surprised by traffic approaching from all directions. This safety feature makes for excellent driving practice when approaching blind corners or corners with traffic approaching from either left or right sides of your vehicle.
This system utilizes radar-based sensors installed at the rear corners of your vehicle that use radar-based technology to detect vehicles within your blind spots and provide an alert that either displays on its display screen or sounds an alert tone, depending on which model your car is. Once activated, this alert remains active until deactivated by you or another driver.
Lane Departure Warning
Lane Departure Warning, or LDW, alerts drivers if their car unexpectedly moves outside its travel lane without their intent. LDW systems use road markers such as stripes and solid colors to detect when cars approach the edge of their travel lane; some provide visual alerts while others also emit audible or haptic (steering wheel vibration) alerts.
This technology works at speeds up to 25 miles per hour. According to IIHS estimates, had all passenger vehicles used this feature, 85,000 police-reported crashes and 55,000 injuries would have been prevented in 2015.
Newer cars even feature hands-free lane centering systems, using a camera to track the roadway. Although this system doesn’t correct for any deviation off of the highway like Tesla Full Self-Driving cars do, it can help drivers stay centered safely on Asheville and Hendersonville highways.
Blind Spot Detection
Blind spots are an area around your car where it is hard for drivers to see. Drivers are trained to assess this area by checking side and rearview mirrors, turning their heads and looking over their shoulders; unfortunately this doesn’t always prevent accidents from occurring.
Blind Spot Detection uses sensors installed along your vehicle’s sides that monitor road activity to alert you if a vehicle enters your blind spot, or comes within close proximity. Some advanced features can even work in conjunction with your turn signal to warn when someone is blocking you from changing lanes.
BSM (or in Volvo’s terminology “Blind Spot Information System”) is an essential safety technology. It’s found on most newer vehicles – from mid-tier and budget models to higher end sedans – with some advanced driver assistance systems bundling this with Rear Cross Traffic Alert capabilities – such as Subaru’s Drive Wise package that includes both technologies.
Surround View Camera
Parking in tight spots or loading up a boat trailer can be challenging without enough visibility of both your car and its surroundings. Multi-camera systems providing virtual bird’s-eye views of its environment will make maneuvering much simpler.
Surround view camera technology uses multiple digital cameras to capture views surrounding your car and combines their perspectives into an image for viewing on a computer screen. A driver can then use this system to navigate into parking spots or back up trailers more easily.
Based on your system, 3-6 cameras with wide-angle lenses will be strategically installed within your car. Their images are then sent to image processing software which combines and synthesizes them to form a coherent composite view of both your car and its surroundings, then projected onto dashboard hardware such as an infotainment system display.
