Volvo Introduces a Collision-Proof Car

carazoo.com sends along a story on Volvo's upcoming crash-proof car. The company will introduce a concept car based on the S60 this month at the Detroit Auto Show, looking ahead a few years to the goal that by 2020 "no one should be killed or injured in a Volvo car." The concept car will have forward-looking radar as a proximity sensor, and the ability to brake if a collision is imminent. When the car senses a collision, a light flashes on the windscreen display along with an audible warning. If the driver doesn't act, the car will brake automatically.

Comments

Good luck with that.

[Sefert]

Up here in northern Canada the roads can get mighty icy. Your car can brake for you all it wants, but that won't change the laws of physics as you're sliding on a sheet of ice towards a thousand pound moose.

Re:Good luck with that.

[LandDolphin]

Interesting review of ABS. I have to say, that I personally agree with all of your points. However, has there been any studies taken to support your (our) Hypothesis?

Re:Good luck with that.

[not already in use]

the apply/release frequency was perfect to ensure the tires kept floating on top of the slush

Please explain to me which law of physics would cause an ABS engaged car to stay afloat on top of slush.

Having lived in Wisconsin all my life, I see snow, ice, snow on top of ice, slush -- everything. I've also been switching between a car with ABS and one without. Even disregarding the decade plus and millions of dollars spent on R&D on the subject and going purely on firsthand experience, I call bullshit on you. Had you locked your brakes up going down a hill, not only would you have gotten in an accident at a higher rate of speed, your car would have rotated and done more damage to others and likely yourself. Blaming ABS is a convenient excuse for your accident, albeit a completely ridiculous one.

I asked the dealer about disabling the ABS, they wouldn't do it.

Did you ask them to remove the seat belts while they were at it?

Re:Good luck with that.

[Beyond_GoodandEvil]

ABS is for Joe Public, not Lewis Hamilton.
If it was good enough for Senna, Prost, and Mansell it should be good enough for Lewis Hamilton. Hell, it might have even saved him at the 2007 Chinese Grand Prix.

Re:Good luck with that.

[Anonymous Coward]

And having lived in Canada all my life, where we learn NOT to abuse steering to get out of accidents in the winter (this is how all the idiots spin their cars--oh how I love to see people from the southern US drive here in the winter!), I've managed to stop my non-ABS car in time in plenty of situations that an ABS car wouldn't have.

I drive daily and I have only once spun my car. This, of course, was for fun on a deserted road. Now, to be honest, my dad would spin the car every few months because he was a bad driver. He learned to drive outside Canada (the UK to be exact). They (obviously) don't teach winter driving skills there, and they just never caught up with him. Oh well... Fortunately he drives slowly enough to compensate.

It is a proven fact that four locked up tires stop faster on snow than ABS. And that's just locked up. You are welcome to deny this, but that doesn't make you correct. Proper braking techniques could increase this gap this further.

Now, the thing is, this is only useful in certain situations. If you are, for example, on a divided highway with all lanes ahead in use, you are best without ABS and using proper braking control to stop in the shortest distance. If, instead, you are on a country road with little to no traffic, you're better off using ABS and driving around the obstacle.

Actually, IMHO, you're better touching the brakes once to transfer weight to the front tires, then driving around the obstacle, but that's just physics and, unfortunately, in those situations you aren't usually thinking about physics.

The choice depends on where you drive. In a busy city in winter, no ABS is best. In rural areas, go with the ABS. In suburban areas, it's your call. For those areas that have winter half the year, and summer the other half, worry more about the winter. You are much more likely to slide in the winter and need to reduce your winter braking distance the most.

Re:Good luck with that.

[TheTurtlesMoves]

The problem is everyone thinks they are a Lewis Hamilton. And besides it was used in F1 for a few years....

Re:Good luck with that.

[cavefrog]

Thanks for the constructive criticism. Maybe I should have been more clear. Here's an example: I had a guy cut out in front of me from a driveway. He was looking the other way, and I would have t-boned him had I not been alert. As it was, I couldn't react quick enough to use the horn, but I was quicker on the brakes. I stopped with a loud screech, just short of hitting him, and his head snapped around to look at me. I still remember the shocked look on his face, and I'm sure he'll remember to make sure traffic is clear in *both* directions before pulling out into the road next time.

That's when I realized that people honk their horns for many different reasons - they're irritated, they're trying to flag down a friend, and sometimes it's to indicate danger - but screeching tires almost always mean danger. Maybe the horn would have had nearly the same effect, but there's also the fact that fumbling with the horn would have made swerving more difficult, had I needed to. And it's nice to think that that guy maybe has a clearer memory of the incident than he would have had otherwise, and will remember to be more careful next time.

And then..

[gambit3]

"When the car senses a collision, a light flashes on the windscreen display along with an audible warning. If the driver doesn't act, the car will brake automatically." ... and then you get rear-ended by the vehicle that was tailgating yours.

Yeah. What could possibly go wrong here?

Re:And then..

[corsec67]

Yeah. What could possibly go wrong here?

The person tailgating gets a ticket for following too closely, reckless driving (not wreckless driving, though).

Re:And then..

[IceCreamGuy]

I'm the same way. I mean, like, take my computer, for instance. I want to be in complete control over everything that it does, so I use it as a stand for my abacus.

Re:And then..

[Dutch Gun]

... and then you get rear-ended by the vehicle that was tailgating yours.

If the car has to brake to avoid a collision, and you get rear-ended because of it, then it seems likely it would have happened either way.

Besides, you used to hear the same sort of arguments about seatbelts. "What if I plunge into a lake and can't get out?" or, "What if the car flips upside-down, catches on fire, and the seatbelt traps me?" At this point, everyone more or less realizes that you're significantly more likely to be involved in a simple collision where you'd be thrown out through the window and onto the pavement (possibly into traffic) without your seatbelt/airbag protecting you. Seatbelts protect against a very real and common danger at the potential expense of a very unlikely scenario. This seems no different to me.

Will it be foolproof and 100% safe/effective? Well, look at airbags. They used to deploy too forcefully, and we learned via a few tragedies that kids can't be in the front seat. But at this point, you'd be insane to think that airbags don't save a lot of lives every year. It's the same thing that will happen with technologies such as these. Probably the thing to do is NOT be an early adopter, and let them work all the bugs out of the system first.

That being said (worthy goal notwithstanding), this sure sounds like a lot of hubris, calling it an "accident-proof" car, or that "no one should die in a Volvo." I seem to recall something about an "unsinkable" ship a few years ago, and look how that turned out?

Re:And then..

[MrNaz]

So you're saying that, in the absence of such a system, if you see a sudden obstacle in front of you, you'd assess the ability of the vehicle *behind* you to stop in time before you brake?

Dude, get off the roads.

"I Canna Change The Laws of Physics, Captain!"

[Reality Master 101]

While everyone would laud the goal "that no one should be killed or injured in a Volvo car," it's a completely ridiculous objective. If a huge truck hits you from behind, you'll die. If you run out of gas on rail road tracks in front of a train, you will die. If you're going too fast in mountain passes and dive off a cliff, you will die.

Unless Volvo has invented anti-gravity or a General Products Hull, this is a ridiculous piece of marketing that only the most stupidly ignorant could believe. Maybe the goal here is to give attention to Volvo, but the goal is so absurd that it seems like it has to bite them in the butt in some unforeseen way.

Re:"I Canna Change The Laws of Physics, Captain!"

[MBCook]

It seems like a pretty reasonable goal under normal driving circumstances. Sure a car won't be able to handle a train, but I assume they are referring to standard highway driving with other vehicles withing a few dozen times the mass of yours.

Re:"I Canna Change The Laws of Physics, Captain!"

[wvmarle]

41.000 people killed in traffic in the USA? That is a very bad record.

Compare to my home, The Netherlands. 16.4 mln people packed together, very busy and often chaotic traffic (far worse than in the USA, that is what Americans tell me, many don't dare to drive on our "narrow, winding, chaotic roads where people drive so fast", indeed our max speed on motorways is about 30 km/h higher than the max allowed in USA), and we had 791 dead and 18,190 wounded in 2007.

Scaled up to the population of the USA (303 mln) that would give me 14,600 dead and 336,000 wounded.

Netherlands is one of the safest countries in the world when it comes to traffic. For the complete European Union (497 mln people) suffered 39,200 dead on the roads in 2006, per head of the population still over 40% less than the USA.

You Americans really can do a lot to improve traffic safety!

wishful thinking

[Bobtree]

This summer I had to ask two passengers in my car to buckle their seat belts.

"Oh, you're that kind of driver?" one asked.

I told them I'm not the driver they should be worried about.

Re:wishful thinking

[IceCreamGuy]

I actually tell people to buckle their seatbelts, and, if asked about it, explain in no uncertain terms that yes, I am that kind of driver. Hey, A less-than perfect driver that knows they're not great is much better than a bad driver that thinks they're the best.

Accident-proof or Accident-resistant?

[I_am_Rambi]

Have Volvo engineers ever driven in ice and snow? If they haven't then they know that no vehicle is accident-proof. Accident-resistant maybe, but not accident-proof.

Accident-proof == No matter what conditions you drive in, and no matter how you drive, you will not get into an accident.

Accident-resistant == Depending on the conditions and driving patterns, there are extra features to help prevent an accident.

If this car is accident proof, then I would expect to go 70 mph down an icy road and expect to stop in the same about of time that I expect to stop in excellent conditions without hitting the stopped car in front of me or going into the ditch.

internet wiseguys

[Lord Ender]

Before everyone here rushes to spout off edge-cases for which this may make things worse, I would like to remind you all that this is still a very good thing so long as it saves more lives than it kills.

Yes, a piece of automation that occasionally kills people is a good thing if it saves even more lives.

Re:internet wiseguys

[MBCook]

Have you ever met someone who was convinced that a specific safety feature in their car (or it's excellent engineering) saved their life?

My family has met someone who was in a horrible high-speed accident in a Honda S2000 (little sports coupe) and walked away (cuts and bruises, I think) with the car totaled. They are convinced (and quite possibly right) that many other small soft-topped cars would have been lethal for in the same crash. They immediately went out and bought another one to replace it because it did such a good job (and was a nice car).

Those people will tell their stories and it will spread. That's GREAT advertising. If your airbag goes off because of a minor collision just on the sensor it's annoying and expensive, but people were more willing to listen to the "airbag saved my life" stories than the "cost me $1500 I didn't need to spend" stories. Eventually they were made mandatory. I'm guessing this will work the same way.

As I've said in other comments in this story, I'm more interested in everyone else having this system than having it myself, although I'd gladly take one.

Re:What about...

[Richard_at_work]

If you have had a few close calls while passing, perhaps you need to examine your driving habits?

Override?

[chinton]

What if I decide not to brake for the dog in front of me because of the 18-wheeler behind me?

Liability

[wfstanle]

If anything prevents this idea from becoming reality, it's the issue of liability . Does any company want to take on the added liability that this concept entails. For example, if a car equipped with this crashes (and it will happen) who will be liable? Even if the company is found not to be at fault, there is the cost of proving it in court.

Re:Liability

[GameMaster]

That's easy. The "Collision-Proof" car will always be a prototype. It will never be a production model available for purchase. They will use it to get good PR for their brand while allowing a healthy distance from the idea that their production models are guaranteed to be collision proof. However, that doesn't mean that this is all useless hot air. Ideally, the more effective/economical technology developed for this prototype will trickle down to the production line. Once the more effective features have been in production with higher end companies, like Volvo, for a while they will work their way down to lower end cars. This is the way it's always worked in the car industry. Features we take for granted in modern cars (power windows, ABS breaks, airbags, etc.) can often be found on prototype cars from many decades before the first publicly sold car carried them.

Unreasonable requests

[phorm]

I think I might have dated the same woman. She hated wearing a seatbelt, but for some reason would accept it if *I* buckled it for her. She also tried to bring her open beer into my car, insisting that if I really cared about her I wouldn't worry about a silly thing like roadside checks and fines, etc.

I've met the type a few times since. Some women like to request unreasonable things in order to have men "prove" how much they value them over common sense. I've seen guys do similar things though in different ways (acting unreasonable and demanding acceptance)...

Good call in ditching her.

Liability

[TriZz]

I think this car is neat-o burrito in concept, but in reality...all that's going to happen is that Volvo is going to get sued all to hell when the system fails and a collision occurs. Calling the car "collision proof" is just a bad idea since we live in a society that tries to avoid accountability at all costs (excluding lawyer fees).

more importantly

[thermian]

What about the car behind you that can't brake as fast?

Building a better idiot?

[geekmux]

Fantastic. Yet another pseudo-automation that will likely translate into yet one more reason idiots think they don't need to pay attention while driving, and instead finish their phone call or text message.

Re:Locusts

[Random BedHead Ed]

Just recently, there was a show about it on the Science Channel.

Did the show explain how the new system can prevent the car behind you from rear-ending your shiny Volvo? TFA doesn't. And while it's great that these concept cars can auto-brake, the guy on your tail isn't necessarily driving another Volvo.

In heavy traffic I often balance my braking between avoidance of read-ending the car in front of me and my expectations of what the car in my rearview mirror is capable of if I slam the brakes too hard. I don't want to drive one of these Volvos unless it's capable of making that judgement at least as well as I can.

Re:A Moose...

[sxltrex]

Fired? Was there an American subtitled version?

Re:A Moose...

[BlueParrot]

Mind you, moose crashes can be pretty nasti...

Monthy python jokes aside, this is very true and quite a few people die from it every year. Part of the problem is that moose have tall enough legs that when you hit one it won't go under the car but it gets thrown through the windshield. Seeing that an adult moose can be several hundred kilograms the front passengers are therefore faced with a shower of splintered glass and getting crushed by the animal as it crashes through the windshield. It should be noted that driving a gas-guzzling SUV won't help you here as as it is essentially the speed and design of windshield which determines how bad the outcome is. If anything driving a heavy car would probably mean you have a longer breaking distance, making things much worse.

Re:Locusts

[YttriumOxide]

Sorry, but I'd classify that as "still your fault". As SOON as the asshat swooped in front of you (which he certainly was an asshat for doing, no doubt there), you should've been on the brakes to increase the distance between you and him (not saying slam them on, just press them enough to slow rapidly, but safely). When he swooped out again, you would've already been braking and so wouldn't have hit the guy at the front (you'd needed to have increased your braking more of course, but if you were going fast enough that you couldn't, then you were too close BEFORE the asshat swooped in).