Technology can prevent road accident

In 1886, when Karl Benz invented the automobile, people began to think about some automobile-related issues, especially issues related to the safety of cars and passengers.
As the use of automobiles is increasing day by day, the number of road accident is increasing proportional to that, as a result, the death rate is rising, and those who survived, many of them become paralyzed and started living confined to four walls. Like other developed countries in the world, road accident is a major issue in Bangladesh. Apart from ensuring wider roads, trained drivers and slow driving, another concern can help preventing or reducing road accident and that is Technology. Vehicle or Automobile Safety Technology is a subject of advanced driver assistance systems or ADAS, and it has a vast area.

As I said before that the development of vehicle safety technology started in the 19th century, just after the invention of the automobile. In that era, safety features of an automobile was known as safety glass, hydraulic brake, seat belt etc. Safety Technology saw a remarkable development in 1934, when General Motors started Crash Test for the first time.
Crash Test is a test where the crashworthiness and sustainability and impact of crash/accident are assessed by occurring accidental simulation in cars and dummies. Later, Disc brake and Anti-Lock Braking system were invented. In the 20th century, road accident became one of the major reasons for death. As a result, apart from increasing awareness, technology became a big weapon for reducing and preventing road accidents. Since then, several companies started developing safety technologies. In 1995, Electronic Stability Control (ESC) was invented which was featured with powerful technology, though it wasn't used in every car. In 1999, Lane Departure Warning system was invented, it was another milestone of automobile safety technology. From the beginning of the 21st Century, most of the car manufacturing companies started implementing safety technology in their cars. In 2003, Honda and Toyota started implementing Autonomous Brake System.

These all were not fully automated. In 2009, the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) began studying to make frontal collision warning systems and lane departure warning systems. In 2012, a research by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety examined how particular features of crash-avoidance systems affected the number of claims under various forms of insurance coverage. This indicates that, two crash-avoidance features provide the biggest benefits, these are (a) autonomous braking that would brake on its own when the driver isn't concern to avoid a forward collision and (b) adaptive headlights that would shift the headlights in the direction, in which, the driver steers. At the circa 2012 stage of development, it's found from this research that lane departure system is not helpful and perhaps harmful.

Periodically anti-car collision features are rapidly making their way into the new vehicle fleet. Many car companies like BMW, Audi, Mercedes- Benz , Ford, Toyota, Volvo developed vehicle collision avoidance system from 2003-2009, but not necessarily they are all time effective. Thus it is the main aim to ensure the safety of human life during the collision, the U.S National High Way Traffic Safety Administration has decided to make the pre-crash system mandatory for vehicles.

Toyota has already given an official announcement that they are going to give this automated vehicles avoidance system in their Toyota & Lexus models by 2017. On the other hand, BMW has already introduced satisfactory & effective anti-car collision system on BMW 7series in 2012. Volvo Company has launched this system in Volvo FH by February 2013. Hope in near future, Apart from all the existing technologies, some other technologies will be introduced as well which will contribute to prevent road accidents.