As cars are getting faster and faster, the damages caused by accidents are also increasing. The need for safety measures is more than ever. Today at CarSwitch, we’ll guide you to check the car’s safety features before buying it!
Seatbelts:
One of the most fundamental safety features a car should have is seatbelts. It protects you from accidents, thankfully all vehicles have this feature and you shouldn’t be worried about it.
Forward Collision Warning (FCW):
It is a feature that warns you about the potential collision from the front. It uses sensors like Radar and a camera to scan the area in front of you. If the distance between your car and the object in front is diminishing, it’ll give you visual and audio warnings so you can apply brakes/ reduce speed, or/and change lanes in time.
Anti–braking system (ABS):
ABS helps you prevent the car from skidding by restoring traction in your tires. The sensors collect the data and send it to the computer constantly during the brake, enabling it to detect the locking-up of tires, it applies and releases the brakes rapidly, while you will feel the pedal vibrating that is normal.
Read More: How is ABS Taking over Old Drum Brakes?
Emergency Braking:
If the driver fails to respond, this feature applies brakes automatically to avoid any potential accident. The sensors detect how close you’re to the car ahead of you, if the distance is below the standard value, it might apply brakes automatically. This feature may be often paired with a Forward collision warning, you will receive warnings at first, then this feature applies brakes. It is not a fool-proof system, so you should always stay focused.
Left Turn Crash avoidance:
While driving, we probably stay more focused on the right lane, if there’s any car coming in the right lane, while the left lane, because it is for slow drives, is ignored by most drivers. And this causes a lot of accidents as a lot of people don’t follow this rule. Now cars have a left-turn crash avoidance feature, which automatically detects the traffic on the left side and if you’re turning left in front of another car, it gives sound warnings, dash lights, applies brakes, and even stops the steering sometimes.
Airbags:
Airbags are now almost a universal feature in cars. It protects you from getting injuries in case of an accident. Cars now have several airbags installed. For this feature to work, the car must be traveling at more than 25 km/h. As the bag inflates, it splits open the covers on the wheel/dash/pillar/seat, etc, as it emerges. When it is deployed, makes noise, dust, and smoke, it is normal.
Curve Speed Warning:
This feature alerts you when you’re approaching a curve with too much speed, or exiting the road at high speed. It can help you if you are traveling late and you do not know the route. This feature tracks the speed and location via GPS. Although this feature does not apply brakes and sometimes some curves are not identified by GPS.
Read More: 5 Important Questions to Ask Yourself Before Purchasing an SUV
High-Speed Alert:
The high-speed alert feature produces a sound when you cross the safe speed limit. This features coordinates the car’s position via GPS, with a database of speed limit information to alert drivers if they’re overspeeding. Newer versions have cameras as well which read the speed limit signs and then adjust the limit accordingly.
Adaptive Cruise Control:
Adaptive cruise control keeps a certain distance from the car ahead of you. It slows or speeds up the car accordingly. You’ll need to understand its braking system as some will even stop the car at traffic lights but mostly it applies brakes to a certain level. It’s currently closest to a self-driving car.
Adaptive Headlights:
The headlights turn with the steering, helping you on the curves to have a better vision of the road. However, it does not switch from low beams to high beams and vice versa.
There are a lot of other features which could be mentioned, but these are some of the most important, the latest which you should be looking for in a car.
