Honda to consider more towards the safety of their cars

Honda has recently given a statement that they are going to make their cars safer for the people. Honda is not considering this action because their cars has absence of any safety features in them, but they are considering it in order to keep the people safe while driving their cars.

The company has officially announced in the last month that they are shortly going to make their cars best in terms of safety. The company has decided to consider two important features in their cars so that they can keep the person inside safe, especially in case of any mishappening occurred by the mistake of the driver.

Honda CEO announced in a press conference last week that every year huge number of people lost their life because of cars accidents all over the world, and the features they have decided to load in their cars will surely contribute in keeping the people safe.

One feature Honda has decided to load in their cars is making their car not usable for the drug users. Company said that this doesn’t mean that the person who takes drugs in the past cannot drive their cars, but actually they are loading their cars with such a feature that doesn’t allow the engine to start if the driver has used drugs or wine just before driving their any car. Company is sure that this is something that will highly contribute in decreasing the overall number of car accidents. Company said that when car will not start in such a case, the driver cannot drive it and thus no accidents will occur.

According to Honda, they are designing such a system that will check the level of drugs or alcohol in the body when a person will touch the start button, and if the level of alcohol or drugs inside the body of driver is beyond the limit when it is not considered as safe, the car will not start.

The second feature at which the company is focusing is to increase the size of air bags. Company said that till now the airbags that are available in cars for the safety of people inside it are not able to cover entire body of the person. However they will extent the size of airbags in their cars which keeps the entire body of the person inside the car totally safe when any accident or mishappening occurs.

When company was asked that when they will introduce their cars that are loaded with these powerful features, they said that it has not finalized and now they cannot even give a nearby date when these features will be available in their cars.

Honda said that no other company has decided to introduce there important features in their cars, but they are sure that once they will load their cars with these features, others automakers will also consider these features for their cars. Honda said that if all automakers will consider these features, then car accidents occurred because of drunk and rive can be avoided totally.

source;
http://www.auto-types.com/autonews/honda-to-consider-more-towards-the-safety-of-their-cars-8853.html

U.S. Rule Set for Cameras at Cars’ Rear

By NICK BUNKLEY

On average, two children die and about 50 are injured every week when someone accidentally backs over them in a vehicle, according to KidsAndCars.org, a nonprofit group that pushed the government to begin tracking such tragedies. And more than two-thirds of the time, a parent or other close relative is behind the wheel.

Now, auto safety regulators have decided to do something about it. Federal regulators plan to announce this week that automakers will be required to put rearview cameras in all passenger vehicles by 2014 to help drivers see what is behind them. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, which proposed the mandate in late 2010, is expected to send a final version of the rule to Congress on Wednesday.

Cars are filled with safety features that have been mandated by government regulators over the years, including air bags and the Liddy Light, the third brake light named for Elizabeth Dole, who made it standard as secretary of transportation in the 1980s.

But the rearview camera requirement is one of the biggest steps taken to protect people outside of a vehicle.

“We haven’t done anything else to protect pedestrians,” said Clarence Ditlow, executive director of the Center for Auto Safety in Washington. “This is one thing we can do and should do.”
A spokeswoman for the highway traffic safety agency declined to comment before the new rule was announced.

However, in a preliminary version circulated for public comment, regulators predicted that adding the cameras and viewing screens will cost the auto industry as much as $2.7 billion a year, or $160 to $200 a vehicle. At least some of the cost is expected to be passed on to consumers through higher prices.

But regulators say that 95 to 112 deaths and as many as 8,374 injuries could be avoided each year by eliminating the wide blind spot behind a vehicle. Government statistics indicate that 228 people of all ages — 44 percent of whom are under age 5 — die every year in backover accidents involving passenger vehicles. About 17,000 people a year are injured in such accidents.

“In terms of absolute numbers of lives saved, it certainly isn’t the highest,” Mr. Ditlow said. “But in terms of emotional tragedy, backover deaths are some of the worst imaginable. When you have a parent that kills a child in an incident that’s utterly avoidable, they don’t ever forget it.”

Automakers began offering backup cameras only about a decade ago, by using the in-dash navigation screens that had become popular on luxury models. The feature has become increasingly popular as companies found more inexpensive ways to display camera images to a driver, such as on a screen hidden in the rearview mirror.

For the 2012 model year, 45 percent of vehicles offer a rearview camera as standard equipment, according to the automotive research Web site Edmunds.com. It is an optional feature on 23 percent of models.

Safety advocates said a mandatory camera is long overdue. “We wouldn’t buy a car if we couldn’t see 30 or 40 feet going forward,” said Janette Fennell, the founder of KidsAndCars.org. “We’re taking this big lethal weapon going in reverse, and we can’t see.”

The new requirement stems from a 2008 law, the Cameron Gulbransen Kids Transportation Safety Act, named for a 2-year-old boy who died in 2002 when his pediatrician father was backing a sport utility vehicle into their driveway. The law required the N.H.T.S.A. to set standards for rear visibility, which had never been regulated.

In urging Congress to help reduce backover injuries, KidsAndCars created a public-service announcement showing that 62 children could fit behind a large S.U.V. without being visible to the driver in any of the mirrors.

Although they account for a small fraction of the deaths that result from automobile crashes, backovers are the most common cause of off-road deaths involving children and vehicles, according to KidsAndCars. The number of reported child fatalities attributed to backovers totaled 448 in the years 2006 through 2010, a sharp increase from 88 in a four-year period a decade earlier, the group said.

In many cases, the incidents involve a phenomenon that safety advocates call “bye-bye syndrome,” when a child runs outside to wave to someone driving away, without that person’s knowledge.

As vehicles have become larger and designed to better protect occupants, drivers’ ability to see any people or objects behind them has been reduced, said Dan Edmunds, director of vehicle testing at Edmunds.com.

“Over time, the beltlines have risen, and the glass has gotten a little smaller in the interest of safety,” Mr. Edmunds said. “There’s certainly been a lot of attention paid to safety, but visibility hasn’t necessarily been lumped in the same way.”

Edmunds now measures the size of the blind spot behind each new vehicle, based on how far back the driver can see a mannequin designed to resemble a small child. Although many backover incidents involve S.U.V.’s and trucks, Mr. Edmunds said some of the biggest blind spots are on passenger cars where the trunk has a high deck lid and the driver sits low to the ground.

For the Cadillac CTS-V coupe, Edmunds measured a blind spot 101 feet long, compared with about 40 feet for minivans from Toyota and Honda.

Automakers have generally supported the requirement, while some took issue with technical aspects of the proposal and the added cost. “We’ve had longstanding support for efforts to increase the field of view for these vehicles,” said Wade Newton, of the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers.

Meanwhile, in anticipation of the 2014 mandate, automakers have been designing models with camera systems in mind. Instead of including a camera in a $2,000 navigation package, many have made it standard or a stand-alone option for a few hundred dollars.

When Honda revamped its CR-V crossover vehicle last year, it included a backup camera as standard equipment. On the 2011 model, CR-V buyers who wanted a camera had to buy the top-of-the-line EX-L trim with a navigation system, which cost $7,000 more than the base model.

Regulators studied other ways of improving rear visibility, including the beeping radar-based sensors that many vehicles already offer. But they determined that the sensors often did not detect moving people, especially children. Drivers also responded better to the camera image than the audio alerts, they said.

“Video camera-based systems are by far the most comprehensive and cost-effective currently available solution for reducing backover crashes, fatalities and injuries,” the N.H.T.S.A. said.

Source;
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/28/business/us-rule-set-for-cameras-at-cars-rear.html?_r=3&pagewanted=print

Jalponik.com : How A Cadaver Made Your Car Safer

Whoa....gruesome, but it's hard to argue with the results....
A highly-promoted feature in the 2011 Ford Explorer are its new inflatable rear seat belts. The not-so-highly-promoted working stiffs that helped make it happen? Human cadavers. Here's how automakers still quietly use dead people to make your car safer.

When automakers and safety advocates show off the results of crash tests, they inevitably run video showing empty vehicles or crash test dummies; back in the 1980s, they even turned the dummies into lovable cartoon characters. What the industry doesn't like talking about is how much of the safety innovation in vehicles was built around testing cadavers.

Since the 1930s, when researchers at Wayne State University first threw a body down an elevator shaft to see what kind of forces it could sustain, cadavers have been essential to making driving safer. Every part of a car touching on safety — from steering columns and laminated windshields to side-impact air bags — has science from cadaver tests making sure they work.

"It's still very important," said Priya Prasad, a former top safety researcher at Ford. "Even though we have very good math modeling of dummies, human modeling hasn't reached that state yet."

Automakers prefer to keep their names away from such ickiness. When a Swedish researcher told a newspaper in 2008 that General Motors and Saab were using cadavers in research, both companies quickly denied the story. And as far as the denial goes, it's true: automakers don't have the medical resources that cadaver tests require.

But universities do. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration funds scores of cadaver tests at schools across the country every year; many of those schools also get grants from automakers. And the data they gather can be shared widely.

That's the case with Ford's inflatable seat belts, an idea it's been testing for several years. The 2011 Explorer will be the first vehicle in the world to offer them, and Ford has made the belts a highlight of the safety features offered to compete against other family haulers.

But before the system could be sold, Ford had to answer myriad questions. Just because it has an air bag doesn't mean the belts would automatically do a better job of shielding passengers from injuries than standard seat belts. It could even be worse: What would happen to children who were sleeping on the belts when they inflated?

Most of Ford's tests used the family of dummies developed by the industry, including ones that mimic children. But without a cadaver test, Ford couldn't know for sure how the inflatable belt would affect internal organs and tissues.

Typically in cadaver tests, as the one pictured above run by the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute, researchers swaddle the body in stockings, including one over its face, partly for scientific reasons and partly out of respect. The arms and hands, if still attached, are bound in place to keep them from moving during a simulated crash, and sensors record the forces on various parts.

After the test, researchers would likely have used x-rays and autopsies to examine how much damage the cadaver sustained. Ford shared the results with NHTSA but deemed them confidential business information — meaning we can't access them by way of a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request — but given that the belts are going on sale, we can guess the tests were successful.

Universities which run such tests have standard procedures for handling cadavers that cover every step of the process, from informing the relatives of a donor what the body will be used for to disposing of the remains.

Ford spokesman Wes Sherwood said the company, like the rest of the industry, was trying to move into digital modeling for crash testing whenever possible. It's far cheaper to run thousands of computer simulations of a crash test with a digital wireframe than to do even one test with a dummy. And either test is less squeamish to the general public than crash-testing involving a once-living, breathing body. It's no wonder they're in no mood to publicize their continued, but still very necessary, use.

"If there's a specific need (for a cadaver test), we will look outside the company to see if someone can help, but most of our work is digital," Sherwood said.

Albert King, a professor at Wayne State who has been working in cadaver research since 1966, said the school's tests had fallen off in recent years; where it used to do one cadaver test a month on average, it now did a few a year if that. King once estimated that such tests saved 8,500 lives a year.

The major reason? After six decades, there's not much room left to improve safety inside the car. With even low-end vehicles offering eight air bags, most research has turned toward how to prevent crashes in the first place.

"We have most of the information we need," King said. "The rest of it we're doing through computer."

But it's not just cars that benefit. Researchers have drawn on Wayne State's cadaver work to design helmets that might prevent concussions in NFL players. NASA has used cadavers to test crashworthiness in the past, and the Defense Department-backed studies rely on cadaver work to better understand traumatic brain injuries.

Prasad says as good as computer models are, they still can't capture the exact essence of how human tissue reacts.

"It's always a good idea when you're developing something to do cadaver testing," he said.

Source;
http://jalopnik.com/5622667/how-a-cadaver-made-your-car-safer

Auto safety features

Here's a really good article explaining Auto Safety Features....Honda Civic and Pilot models demonstrate crumple zones in a crash test. The crumple or crush zones in their sheet-metal structure absorb and disperse crash energy to reduce an impact’s effects on the occupants.

Automotive safety has come a long way from the scary days when ordinary window glass was used for windshields. Safety features - once a hard sell in the 1950s when manufacturers first attempted marketing them - have now become a key selling point.

And astonishing advances in safety have been made in recent years, thanks to the advent of low-cost electronics. A whole new lexicon of automotive terminology has evolved to describe passive and active safety features.

We’ll attempt to boil it down here to a non-techno-speak reduction that will still provide some sound informational nourishment.

Active safety features include things like electronic stability control, traction and adaptive braking systems and are covered in another article in this series.

Here we’ll look primarily at passive safety features that are standard or optional on a wide range of vehicles.

THEY'RE SUPPOSED TO CRUMPLE UP
Old-school types are fond of saying modern vehicles crumple up like discarded origami creations in a crash - and they do, on purpose. They have crumple or crush zones in their sheet-metal structure that absorb and disperse crash energy to reduce an impact’s effects on the occupants.

Stamp your foot hard on the ground, then do the same to a shoe box to see how it works. There are also side-impact or side-intrusion beams in the doors that prevent intrusion when the side of car is hit.

All vehicles sold in North America must meet minimum crash standards for front, side and rear collisions and rollovers, but it’s also true larger, heavier vehicles will generally fare better in a crash than smaller lighter ones – it’s a matter of physics. And some are better than others. The U.S.-based U.S. Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, which has been scientifically crash testing vehicles since 1969, offers a star rating that’s worth taking note of.

THE NEXT LINE OF DEFENCE
Seatbelts are arguably the most valuable passive safety feature in your vehicle, holding you in place while the vehicle sacrifices itself around you. Today’s three-point belt systems remind you to wear them with warning chimes and have been improved with the addition of adjustable shoulder-belt anchors that can make wearing the belt more comfortable and effective.
Seatbelt pre-tensioners are small explosive devices that snap the belt tight after an impact. Force limiters mitigate injury from the belts themselves.

Supplemental-restraint systems is a fancy term for what we universally call airbags, which aren’t deployed in a crash by air at all, but by an inert gas. Dual stage front bags inflate based on an accident’s severity. Side airbags protect your torso in a side impact and side-curtain airbags protect the heads of front and rear seat passengers, and those with roll sensors stay inflated longer in a rollover.

Knee bags help prevent injury to lower extremities. A child restraint system known as latch (lower anchors and tether anchors for child seats) is found in all new vehicles as are child-resistant door locks.

Adjustable head rests let you locate them close to the back of your head where they are most effective. Active head restraints work by moving the head restraint forward in a rear collision to protect your neck. Anti-submaring seats stop your body from sliding out from under the belts in a frontal crash.

BUT WAIT THERE'S MORE
To this basic safety kit have been added things such as tire pressure monitoring systems that keep track of tire pressure, which is important to control, braking, fuel economy and tire wear. Run flat tires can be driven on even after losing their air so you don’t have to fix a flat by the roadside. Specifically designed winter tires have rubber compounds and tread patterns designed to work effectively in a variety of harsh weather conditions.

A reversing camera system displays what’s behind you when you’re backing up and displays it on dash or rearview-mirror screen so you don’t squash anybody’s tricycle. Ford’s cross traffic alert and Chrysler’s cross path detection technology warns of vehicles you can’t see when backing out of a parking spot. Infiniti’s around view monitor has cameras that give you a 360-degree look around your vehicle.

Adaptive cruise control employs radar to automatically adjust speed and slow the vehicle to maintain a set distance between the vehicle ahead. Many find this annoying. But a collision-warning system can detect when a vehicle ahead is stopping suddenly and warn you with a flashing light and an alarm while priming the brakes for instant action. Volvo offers an in-city slow speed version that actually applies the brakes to stop a fender bender.

Mercedes-Benz is offering attention assist, which can detect when a driver is getting drowsy and warn him or her to pay attention. A crash-alert system will notify a central communications centre if you’ve had an airbag-deploying crash, and some systems also turn on the four-way flashers and sound the horn.

Adaptive headlamps actually swivel, as you round curves, giving you an earlier look at what’s lurking in the dark. Xenon or high-intensity discharge headlamps provide a clear white light projected out to greater distances for earlier detection of things in your path. And if it’s pouring, rain-sensing wipers detect water on the windshield and activate automatically.

Smart keys can automatically unlock your car and let you start it with the push of a button and be programmed to limit power available to an inexperienced teenage driver.

Head-up displays project information about vehicle speed and warning lights up into your lower line of vision on the windshield, but can also display infra-red generated images of objects in your path.

Heated side mirrors will make for safer passing and merging and if you haven’t adjusted them correctly and blind-spot warning sensors can detect a vehicle you can’t see and alert you with a flashing light, or in BMW’s case, a vibrating steering wheel. A lane-departure warning system makes you aware your car is drifting out of its lane.

Bluetooth is an in-car wireless communications facilitator that can allow the use of a variety of voice-activated or hands-free devices, reducing driver distraction.

A battery-saver program built into your car’s electrical grid may not seem like a safety device, but it can keep your battery from going flat and stranding you in a winter parking lot.

Different manufacturers offer some or all of these systems either as standard or as options.

Source;

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-drive/car-tips/buyers-guide/auto-safety-features/article1345129/