German carmaker Mercedes-Benz is developing an enhanced safety system which will automatically swerve around pedestrians to avoid road mishaps. The head of safety development, Ulrich Mellinghoff, foresees that the technology will be available as soon as 2015.
During the Detroit Auto Show, Mellinghoff explained that around 80% of the accidents on the road involving people entail only 20% of the car’s front hitting the pedestrian. They did the math and studies show that it will only take a Mercedes Benz to swerve by 40 to 50 centimeters to avoid the pedestrian detected by the safety system.
Safety on the road is ultimately the responsibility of the driver so the technology will still encourage that the driver should react first during a potential road mishap. This concept is also applied on other Mercedes safety systems.
The Mercedes’ crash prevention technology will be unlike Volvo’s CitySafe system which triggers the brakes to avoid collision. The new safety protocol will be added to other existing safety platforms of Mercedes like the drowsiness monitor first used with the E-Class. The drowsiness system will be rolled out as a standard featured in all Mercedes Benz vehicles.
Mellinghoff admitted that it might be impossible to totally eliminate all accidents on the road, like what is set by their Volvo counterparts, but he is proud to say that fatal accidents involving Mercedes Benz is rarely part of the real world statistics. The head of safety of Mercedes boasts that they do not have a reported incident of a Mercedes Benz driver who was killed or seriously injured in the last two years.