Volvo City Safety

CitySatety, the new system from Volvo. News taken from http://www.thecarthatstopsitself.com/

Videos with the systems in Volvo Channel in Youtube

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Ok, so like many of my male friends, we don’t want to give up control of anything to anyone, much less a car. I mean, why would I want some high tech device to stop my car…I’m not good enough? Well probably not. Last summer my wife and I were heading down to Washington, D.C., stuck in world famous I-95 traffic. I’m stopped waiting for some signs of life ahead. I looked over my shoulder at our dog and bumped into the guy in front. I looked up and saw that I was moving….too late. Honestly, wasn’t more than 4 mph. The only damage was to his car, where my license plate bolts scrapped his fender. That cost me $550. That wouldn’t have happened with City Safety.

In April this year I drove an XC60 with City Safety. After I-95, I think City Safety has my vote. When driving the XC60 with City Safety, I was surprised at how quickly and aggressively the system applies brakes, at speeds less than 9 mph it stop our XC60 completely. OK, if there’s ice, snow, rain or whatever makes a road surface slippery, the stopping distance will change. From 10-18 mph the system will reduce vehicle speed and help to reduce vehicle damage and injuries, especially whiplash. I borrowed this from an IIHS report: “Rear-end collisions are frequent, and neck injuries are the most common serious injuries reported in automobile crashes. They account for 2 million insurance claims each year costing at least $8.5 billion. Such injuries aren’t life-threatening, but they can be painful and debilitating.” Guess I helped contribute to that cost next go around.

City Safety works by calculating the distance to the forward vehicle and road speeds relative to each vehicle to determine if your near future life includes bumping into a stranger’s vehicle. Mounted up behind the windshield, near inside rear view mirror is a laser camera. Interesting – all these years we’ve built safety systems that are hidden, like energy absorbing systems, great brakes, collapsing steering columns, whiplash seat, stuff that’s just waiting to be used, but you’ll never see. With City Safety it’s right in sight; guess you could use it to impress the neighbors. Hey, no one has this but Volvo.

I asked the engineer who worked on this, why no red warring light, like a “heads up display?” “By the time you see the light, and we wait for you to apply brakes, you’ll have hit the car in front.” His logic, and he’s right, is the system works faster than you or I. Our Collision Warning System with Automatic Braking does have a nice red led ‘bar’ light to warn you, looks like someone’s brake light right in front – heads up display style, but then in most cases you do have time to react.

Guess we men just have to learn when to bow to something smarter than us. I like City Safety. Well, back to work. James, my counterpart out West is pestering me for help with the Detroit Auto Show, we have press days January 11-13 and public days start the 19th.