We can’t imagine our lives today without vehicles, can we? Nope. But, as much as we’ve started depending on these machines and automobiles, our life’s at risk just about all the times we’re in if you think.
So, while cars have becomes an important part of our daily lives, ensuring that you and all those who in it would remain safe is quite the least that we can do. In this article, we’ve discussed 3 of the most important and commonly preferred safety equipment one needs in a car today.
Table of Contents
1. Accident Avoidance Systems
Accident avoidance systems are particularly made for preventing or reducing the severity of vehicle accidents by giving visual and aural cautions to the machinists or by proactively carrying out defensive maneuvers like braking in a situation where a danger of collision or accident is about to happen.
Accident avoidance systems are available in rail, automotive, aerospace, and marine applications. These systems are useful when it comes to saving lives by reducing the number of injury-related collisions and accidents. According to the car accident lawyers at The Dominguez Firm.
How Do Accident Avoidance Systems Work?
As a matter of fact, accident avoidance systems let your vehicle sense obstructions, pedestrians, and other vehicles in your way through lasers, radars, and cameras.
Foreseeing a collision or accident, your vehicle gives any number of signals — a dashboard icon or blinking mirror, a chirp, and a vibrating steering wheel to warn you to be careful or take necessary corrective action.
In more sophisticated collision avoidance systems, corrective action can actually be taken on your behalf by correcting your steering or by applying the brakes, depending on the situation.
The Key Features of Accident Avoidance Systems
Before now, collision or accident avoidance systems were common among the high-end and expensive luxury vehicles. But today, they have been extended to the lower-priced, mainstream vehicles, making them readily available to the average consumer.
Here are a few of the popular features of the accident avoidance systems:
[su_list icon=”icon: pencil-square-o” icon_color=”#2bced0″]- Blind-spot Monitoring and Assist: This is the feature designed to light up an icon on your dashboard or mirror when a vehicle is detected in your blind spot. The system may give another warning such as a chirp if you begin to turn into the other vehicle. In order to keep you in your lane, more advanced or sophisticated systems may even apply the brakes on one side of your vehicle lightly.
- The Pre-crash Warning System or Forward Collision Warning: Generally, this part of the system simply tells you to be careful — through a chirp — if you are closing in on the vehicle in your front too speedily. The more sophisticated features in some vehicles will apply full or partial auto-brake if you pay no attention to the warning.
- The ISA (Intelligent Speed Assist): This feature is meant to alert you when you go beyond the required speed limit. When you go beyond the expected speed for a particular segment of the road by a predetermined limit, the ISA activates. It comes with both visual and audio warnings sound to keep you reminded that you are going too fast.
- Rear Cameras: They are installed for the prevention of back-over accidents by signaling that your vehicle should release a chirp as you drive close or approach an obstacle. Rear cameras are mainly useful when backing into tight parking spots.
- Automatic Park Assist: This part of the system automatically discovers a parking space (perpendicular or parallel) that your vehicle can fit into, and then assist in steering it into space.
- The Active Braking Systems: Offer you the braking support you need in the course of emergency conditions. A lot of active braking systems versions are available. While more advanced braking systems automatically help you prevent collisions, the preliminary systems are designed to help you by warning you of imminent collisions.
2. Anti-lock Brake System (ABS)
The ABS with full meaning as Anti-lock Brake System is a safety braking system installed on land vehicles such as buses, trucks, motorcycles, and cars. ABS is also used on aircraft.
It functions by guiding the wheels against locking up in the course of braking and also assists drivers when it comes to maintaining the steering control.
At times, ABS is also called the anti-braking as it lets the wheels of your vehicle maintain tractive contact with the surface of the road in order not to go into an unrestrained skid.
You have more control over your vehicle during situations like accidental braking, with the anti-lock brake system. In a nutshell, ABS is designed to help you avoid skidding and maintain some steering ability while braking.
The Working Principle of ABS
The simple and basic logic behind the anti-lock brake system is to prevent the wheels of your vehicle from locking up. Generally, it offers better vehicle control and decreases stopping distances on slippery and dry surfaces.
The Components of Anti-lock Brake System
A typical ABS comes with four major components including a controller, pump, valves, and wheel speed sensors.
[su_list icon=”icon: pencil-square-o” icon_color=”#2bced0″]- The Controller: This is an ECU unit that gets information from every individual wheel speed sensor in the vehicle. The signal is sent to the controller, should a wheel lose traction. After that, the controller will limit the brake force (EBD) and turn on the ABS modulator which eventually activates the on and off of the braking valves.
- The Valves: A valve is available in the brake line of every brake managed by the ABS. three different positions on some systems as follows: The valve is opened in the first position with the pressure from the master cylinder passing straight to the brake. The valve blocks the line in the second position, segregating the brake from the master cylinder. This stops the pressure from rising more if the driver pushes the brake pedal harder. The valve releases some pressure from the brake in this third and final position.
- The Speed Sensor: This is what is being used to establish the deceleration or acceleration of the wheel. Speed sensors make use of an electromagnetic coil and a toothed wheel or a Hall effect sensor and magnet for generating a signal.
ABS is considered one of the most important safety features in vehicles. From recent findings, cars equipped with anti-lock brake systems are far less likely to have multi-car accidents.
This is due to the fact that they still have access to steering capabilities. ABS has revolutionized the automobile industry completely, making vehicles far safer!
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3. Air Bags
An airbag is a stretchable fabric tightly packed in different locations of your vehicle for safety purposes. In most vehicles, airbags are available at the front of the dashboard, while a lot of these cars have their airbags located at the side of the vehicle.
Airbags squeezed together and kept in a small place in the car. They are filled up with air very quickly when an accident occurs in order to offer a cushioning system for the occupants of the vehicle for them not to be thrown around if there is a crash.
An airbag can be of great importance to the passengers in a vehicle, even though it doesn’t necessarily prevent total injury or death.
An airbag performs the three primary functions enumerated below:
[su_list icon=”icon: pencil-square-o” icon_color=”#2bced0″]- Eases deceleration forces on the body
- Distributes the force of effect all over the width of the body, instead of focusing on a big force in a little spot
- Prevent the occupants of a vehicle from hitting hard objects like the dashboard or steering wheel.
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Types of Airbags for Vehicle Safety
The Front Airbags
The front airbag is normally deployed from the steering wheel to protect the driver from striking other parts of the vehicle when there is a frontal crash. These airbags are meant to be used together with seatbelts and do not provide protection if there is a side-impact crash.
Side Airbags
Side airbags aka torso airbags are installed on the outer edge of the seat. They are designed for the protection of the pelvic and abdominal parts of the body if there is a side collision. Side airbags also reduce the effect of head injuries if a vehicle starts rolling after a collision.
The Side Curtain Airbags
These types of airbags are normally installed on the roof of the car, on top of the windows. Side curtain airbags deploy downward and cover the windows just like curtains when there is a rollover or side collision.
These airbags protect the heads of the occupants from being whipped outside the car when there is a side or T-bone collision. Secondly, if the vehicle rolls over, they protect the head and arms from debris.
On the other hand, side curtain airbags normally remain inflated for some seconds so that it can offer absolute roll-over protection, unlike most airbags which deflate immediately.
A good number of side curtain airbags protect both the front and the back seats. In addition, some three-row vehicles come with side curtain airbags for all three rows.
The Knee Airbag
These airbags are normally situated on the lower edge of the dashboard and under the steering wheel and glove compartment protect the legs of the occupants of the vehicle or a driver from suffering knee injuries like breaking or bruising a bone.
The Rear Seat Side Airbags
This type of airbag comprises of the rear-window and rear-center airbags. They are designed to prevent the passengers at the back seats from colliding with each other and from the back window when there is a rear-end collision. Rear airbags are particularly safe for the seats of children.
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Frequently Asked Questions ( FAQ )
Which type of airbags is most common?
The types of airbags that you can find commonly in mostly in the modern-day car are the side curtain bags and the front bags normally deployed from the steering wheel to protect the driver and others from hitting the parts before them during the course of a crash.
When the car gets into a minor accident, usually, those inside the car, especially ones in the front have the greatest chances of hitting and hurting their head. The frontal and side airbags help prevent that and therefore, ultimately help minimize any potential injury one can get while or if people in the car get into an accident.
Are Accident Avoidance Systems Effective Actually?
In a majority of cases, this should help avoid or, at the very least, minimize the severity of, collisions or accidents. It has got a number of components or features assisting you by giving you some warning in the form of light blinks or beeps etc.
when a vehicle is detected in the blind-spot or when you are over-speeding, as we’d discussed in the article above. These warnings should be helpful in limiting the effect of an accident and even avoid the situation. The advanced systems may have even better and advanced sensors.
So, to wrap up, make sure, you’ve got these added and present in your vehicle to make sure that you and your loved ones remain