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The Vision of a Comprehensive Safety Concept
Technical Paper
2001-06-0252
Sector:
Language:
English
Abstract
A look at the various past achievements in the field of
passenger car safety raises the question whether any dramatic steps
towards its improvement can still be expected. Will progress be
confined to the optimization of existing systems or does the future
hold new substantial safety steps? This paper elaborates on the
issue that the time available before a potential accident occurs
can be used to improve the safety of occupants and other involved
road users. Accident analysis confirms that this is feasible for
about two-thirds of all accidents. The recognition of an imminent
collision bears a noteworthy potential for accident prevention,
reduction of accident severity and injury severity. The former
boundary between active and passive safety thus fades
continually.
Based upon this it is possible to describe vehicle safety by a
comprehensive approach encompassing seven escalation levels. This
approach underscores the future intention of Mercedes-Benz to
increasingly embrace preventive protection systems in the form of
"collision mitigation'' on the active safety side, and
"PreSafe'' on the passive safety side. This
contribution, focusing on PreSafe, presents various protective
measures and describes their advantages.