Road toll drives need for more safety tech
Recent times have seen a glut of new safety technologies emerge in the new-car market, usually with three-word titles cut down to acronyms and using tiny cameras, radars and other tech more usually associated with national security and espionage in years past - blind-spot monitoring, lane departure assist, driver fatigue warning.
It can all be pretty overwhelming when buying a new car and, fact is, many of us can't afford to go all out for the top-of-the-line safety pack options.
But according to Monash University Accident Research Centre associate director Stuart Newstead, there are certain features he believes play a big part in reducing the road toll.
Fortunately, the main one is now a legal requirement in all passenger cars: electronic stability control. It also will soon be mandatory in commercial vehicles, however, Professor Newstead said it was important buyers made sure their work utes had the technology before the mandate came in.
"That's a big issue for Western Australia where the light commercial, 4WD ute sales are so strong," he said.
"It's a no-brainer in a sense as the technology is really good in reducing 4WD crashes, so if it's optional, tick the box or get a vehicle where it's fitted as standard."
As for newer safety features, Professor Newstead believes forward collision warning systems - which detect imminent collisions and alert the driver and/or apply the brakes automatically - show the most promise of making roads safer in the future but he said the technology needed to evolve further to be truly effective.
"Forward collision warning has applicability to a wide cross-section of the crash population," he said.
"But one of the difficulties we're finding so far is most of the systems that are most prevalent offer only low-speed crash avoidance which isn't the real key problem.
"What we'd like to see is systems come out that have high-speed crash avoidance, and not just other vehicles but other things like fixed objects as well."
Professor Newstead said as new technologies emerged, they needed to be monitored to see how they performed in the real world before passing judgment on their merits.
"A classic example was ABS brakes where everyone thought 'This will be a great safety feature and stop a lot of crashes' and it just didn't for various reasons," he said.
"Often it was a behavioural adaptation that came with ABS that made it problematic and you have to worry about some of the behavioural adaptations with the new technologies coming out as well."
In other words, don't drive any differently just because your car's loaded with safety features - you're still the number one defence against an accident happening, and then how the car reacts in such a situation.
"If that system should fail, you need to be there to back it up," Professor Newstead said.
"It should be there to back you up, not the other way around."
But the key thing is to keep safety in mind when in the showroom and maybe consider upping the safety on your new car as opposed to, say, forking out extra for some heated seats.
"Some people tend not to think about it at all, they think their car comes with all of the features and forget to tick the boxes for safety stuff," Professor Newstead said.
"They should really be considering safety as being right up there as a priority; they worry about the colour, stereo, what the wheels look like. Safety's something you may never need but if you do, you want it right."
