Advanced Safety Systems Guide

Khodrocar - Manufacturers are building cars with systems that can help you avoid or mitigate a crash in all sorts of situations, such as closing in on another car too quickly, changing lanes into an unseen car in a blind spot, or simply backing out in a busy parking lot.

Key active safety systems include:

Automatic emergency braking (AEB): Brakes are automatically applied to prevent a collision or reduce collision speed.

Forward-collision warning (FCW): Visual and/or audible warning intended alert the driver and prevent a collision.

Blind-spot warning (BSW): Visual and/or audible notification of vehicle in blind spot. The system may provide an additional warning if you use your turn signal when there is a car next to you in another lane.

Rear cross-traffic warning: Visual, audible, or haptic notification of object or vehicle out of rear camera range, but could be moving into it.

Rear automatic emergency braking (Rear AEB): Brakes are automatically applied to prevent backing into something behind the vehicle. This could be triggered by the rear cross-traffic system, or other sensors on the vehicle.

Lane-departure warning (LDW): Visual, audible, or haptic warning to alert the driver when they are crossing lane markings.

Lane-keeping assist (LKA): Automatic corrective steering input or braking provided by the vehicle when crossing lane markings.

Lane-centering assist:  Continuous active steering to stay in between lanes (active steer, autosteer, etc.)

Adaptive cruise control:  Adaptive cruise uses lasers, radar, cameras, or a combination of these systems to keep a constant distance between you and the car ahead, automatically maintaining a safe following distance. If highway traffic slows, some systems will bring the car to a complete stop and automatically come back to speed when traffic gets going again, allowing the driver to do little more than pay attention and steer.

Once sold on the concept of these active safety systems, there remains the challenge in interpreting each manufacturer’s offerings, each with their own unique name, and then figuring out which trim and/or option is necessary to get the gear.