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Anyone who has been hurt or has lost a loved one in a motor vehicle accident often wishes the events of that fateful day never happened. However, deaths from motor vehicle accidents have dropped 25 percent since 2005 as a result of several factors, including improvement in the safety of vehicles produced.
In recent years, manufacturers have been using computer-aided design technology to figure out how to make cars safer for motorists. New forward collision avoidance systems, which are available in several vehicle makes and models, can reduce collisions by up to 30 percent, according to a researcher for the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety.
In fact, many of the 2013 vehicle models will have some of this new technology, which has been in high-end vehicles for some time. Faster microprocessors and the decrease in the price of electronic hardware have made it so the technology isn’t just available in the higher-end vehicles.
The safety systems are divided into two categories: passive and active. Passive systems help prevent injuries during an accident. For example, an airbag is a passive system because it works only to prevent a person from getting hurt during an accident.
On the other hand, active systems prevent accidents from occurring in the first place. Examples of active systems include sensors and lasers that are used to warn a driver when he or she is going to crash or deviate from his or her lane.
While it will be many years before all cars on the roads are equipped with these safety features, the death rate associated with car crashes is expected to decline even further as they become more readily available to consumers.
Source: MSNBC, “Highway deaths plunging as cars become safer,” Paul A. Eisenstein, May 21, 2012