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I found an article written by Matt Nauman of the San Jose Mercury News that talks about the new Volvo XC60 cossover utility vehicle that has a technology available so that the car can brake itselft to avoid a fender bender.  The technology is called City Safety, which is a low-speed collision-avoidance technology that comes with the new 2010 Volvo XC60.

Here how City Safety works.  a windshield-mounted laser sends infrared rays out as far as 18 feet in front of the vehicle.  Then a computer analyzes the rays reflected back from any object ahead of the car, and if the computer decides that a crash is imminent, it automatically brakes the vehicle.  Interesting, right?  The City Safety should help to prevent low-speed crashes that happen when a driver fails to notice that the car in front of them stopped or slowed down.  The system does not require any input from the driver.  Volvo thinks that this system could reduce the number of low-speed collisions by half.        

There are several newer technologies in cars such as telling you if you are falling asleep at the wheel, or if a car is in your blind spot.  If you drift from your lane, the car warns you as well.  The good news is that all of these technologies are saving lives, and I’m sure there is better technology to come for us in the future that will become standard in vehicles just like airbags are.

   

This entry was posted on Sunday, May 10th, 2009 at 1:40 pm and is filed under Car Techology, Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.