Cars are getting safer and safer, and manufacturers are increasingly kitting their vehicles out with a raft of features designed to keep you in one piece, some of which you'll already know about, and some which may be new you. We'll go through some of the features you're most likely to encounter!
ABS Brakes
The first car to feature anti-lock brakes was the 1966 Jensen FF, with a rather crude mechanical system. The 1978 Mercedes W-116 was the first production car to feature sophisticated electronic ABS, and other manufacturers followed, albeit slowly.
The principle of ABS is quite simple – when you stamp on the brakes and the wheels 'lock up' (where the brakes prevent the wheels from turning) the car skids and you have no control.
You can't steer, or decide where the car's going to go. If you then lift off the brakes the car can suddenly swerve in the direction of the wheels. Basically locking up the wheels is all kinds of dangerous.
ABS works by pulsing the brakes on and off incredibly quickly – in a single second the brakes can be applied and released around 15 times.
The result is a car that stops in a controlled and safe manner and allows you so steer out of trouble while you're braking heavily.
Seatbelt Pretensioners
While you're fully aware of seatbelts and their function – did you know that most modern cars have small explosive devices fitted to the seatbelt stalk?
In the event of an accident, the car detects the rapid deceleration and the car fires the pretensioners in a fraction of a second.
They activate small but powerful pistons which pull the seatbelt tight across your chest and lap preventing you from sliding under the seatbelt or (hopefully) from striking the dashboard.
Airbags
Who'd have thought that having numerous explosive devices in your car could actually save your life? Because that's exactly what you'll find in an airbag!
A myriad of sensors and accelerometers around the vehicle detect either an impact, or a potential roll over and are able to ignite the explosive devices contained within the airbag.
This in turn causes a mass of harmless gas (often nitrogen or argon) to be produced quicker than the blink of an eye. The gas inflates the nylon airbag with such force that it blows off any plastic cover.
As your head, or other body part, impacts the airbag it deflates, cushioning you and hopefully saving you from injury. The bags are designed to deflate very quickly too so you'll still be able to see out of the car in case any further avoiding action is required.
Initially cars only came fitted with driver airbags contained within the steering wheel, this progressed onto passenger airbags, curtain airbags (which run along the top of the doors in the event of a side impact or roll over), airbags for rear passengers, airbags for your knees and so on.
Most new cars have at least 6 airbags, and some can even have over 10!
Side impact bars
As the name suggests these are very strong metal bars that are fitted within the doors of your car. In the event of a side impact the car's structure is severely compromised and without impact bars even a low speed side impact can have catastrophic consequences.
They're part of the vehicle 'safety cell' and mean that current cars are considerably safer than they were a few decades ago.
Traction control
If you accelerate too hard, particularly on wet or slippery ground, you may have noticed a little orange light coming on your dashboard, and the car feeling like it's momentarily losing power. This is traction control.
Sensors detect when the wheels aren't turning at similar speeds i.e. when they've lost traction - and the car's ECU reduces the power being sent to either all the driven wheels, or just the wheel that's spinning (depending how sophisticated the car's traction control is).
Some cars are also able to apply the brakes to some or all of the affected wheels, as well as reducing power.
Stability Control aka ESP/ESC/DSC
Stability control has numerous names depending on the manufacturer, but its purpose is the same. It uses similar principles to traction control, in that the car detects wheel slippage, whether that be understeer or oversteer and either reduces power, applies the brakes, or a mix of the two to enable you to regain control of the car.
Whereas traction control's aim is to maintain traction, stability control is intended to allow you to maintain steering and remain in control of your car.
Electronic Brake Force Distribution
Under hard braking EBD works in conjunction with the ABS and stability control to automatically vary the amount of force applied to each wheel in order to retain control and maintain safe deceleration.
In some cases the car may apply extra braking force to the rear wheels until the weight is transferred to the front, when it then applies most of the braking force to the front wheels.
Brake Assist
If your car detects that you're braking hard in an emergency situation brake assist kicks in and increases both the brake pressure, and the speed with which the brakes are applied. So if your car thinks you're attempting an emergency stop it overrides your input until the ABS comes into play.
Lane Assist
Using a variety of sensors and often a clever bit of camera-trickery, lane assist comes in two forms, passive and active.
Passive lane assist senses when you're veering out of your lane without signalling (usually when travelling above 40mph) and either sounds a warning buzzer, or vibrates the steering wheel to alert you.
Active systems physically intervene and gently steer the car back into the correct lane either by activating the electric power steering, or by lightly applying the brakes on one side.
Blind Spot Warning System
To avoid you inadvertently changing lanes and colliding with a vehicle in your blind spot, the car detects when there is someone close behind and to the side of you, and let's you know they're there (usually) via a warning light in the side mirror.
Adaptive Cruise Control
Regular cruise control allows you to set your car to drive at a constant speed. This is all well and good, but could be considered to be dangerous as it fails to take into account the movement of vehicles around you.
Adaptive cruise control uses radar, or laser technology to sense the vehicle in front of you and maintains a set distance from it – so if they slow down, so do you, and if they speed up, so do you to a preset level.
Active Headlights
Active headlights have many variations but many are linked to the steering and the main and dipped beam bulbs swivel with the steering to 'see' round corners as you drive.
You may also find active lights either have separate 'cornering bulbs' that come on when the steering angle reaches a prescribed angle, or the car turns on one of the front driving lights depending on the corner.