Volvo puts safety first

Mon 9th November 2009 3.50PM

WILL motoring in the future ever be accident-free? It could be - especially if Volvo has anything to do with it. Electric cars, for example - now seen as good for the climate and thus important for tomorrow’s city drivers - are already being taken apart and destroyed by the Swedish firm in its pursuit of higher safety standards for this type of vehicle. But the firm’s focus remains on preventing accidents, and it has set itself the short-term target that no-one will be killed or injured in a new Volvo car by 2020. An impressive target - but not an impossible one, given Volvo’s spread of research into both car occupant, and pedestrian, protection.

“Zero is the one and only solution for us,” says Jan Ivarsson, head of safety strategy at Volvo. “As the leader in car safety, we can’t accept that people are killed or injured just because they want to transport themselves from A to B. “Our aim is to come so close to zero that one single car accident is defined as a disaster, not an acceptable part of our daily lives.” So what exactly does Volvo have in the pipeline to prevent a collision? Firstly, it is looking at linking with other car makers to produce a safety system whereby one car literally “talks” to another if there’s the potential for danger. Ivarsson says a future Volvo will be able to “speak” to an oncoming vehicle, along the lines of: “You and I are about to collide head-on.

If our drivers don’t react, we have to do something. Let’s steer clear of the danger.” The key to cars acting automatically to avoid a collision is finding a common ‘language’, the safety chief adds, to ensure the detection-prevention technology is reliable. “The air around us is already charged with communication, most of it used for pleasure or convenience,” says Ivarsson. “Adding traffic safety communication to this existing architecture is a far more sensible route than trying to invent and agree on a completely new ‘language’ for communicating in the traffic environment.” Volvo’s all-new Volvo S60, due here next year, will come with the firm’s next generation of preventive safety technology - a collision warning system that includes auto braking and pedestrian safety measures.