Mercedes-Benz Safety Truck with Active Protection

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Mercedes-Benz Safety Truck with Active Protection

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May 15, 2006 As ironic as it seems, Mercedes Benz trucks are actually more advanced in their active safety systems than the company’s most advanced passenger vehicles, and the advent of its latest Active Brake Assist (emergency brake assistant) technology will see that brought firmly into focus in coming weeks as the company steps up its road safety initiatives at a political level in Europe. Though it will be marketing all of its electronic driver support and safety system concepts in one “Mercedes-Benz Safety Truck” package, the bright yellow safety poster child is actually available as of this week as a fully-optioned Actros. The newly added Active Brake Assist is based on the existing radar system used by the Telligent proximity control system and initiates emergency braking when there is an acute risk of a collision with a car in front.

It uses the three radar beams of the proximity control system, which detect obstacles moving in the lane ahead of the truck at a distance of up to150 metres, while constantly determining the difference in speeds between the two vehicles. If an accident is unavoidable in the prevailing circumstances, the driver is first given a visual and acoustic warning, followed by partial braking (30 percent braking performance), and if the risk of a collision increases even further, the system then initiates full emergency braking. Since rear-end collisions represent a sizable proportion of the accidents that occur in heavy-duty transport on European roads, the accident researchers expect the widespread use of Active Brake Assist to lead to a noticeable reduction in the number of accidents involving fatalities and serious injuries.

In the coming weeks, the Mercedes-Benz Safety Truck will be presented in 12 European countries, and the effectiveness of the safety technologies will be demonstrated in specially organized drives. The aim of this initiative is to encourage the widespread adoption of modern safety systems for accident avoidance by addressing policymakers, the general public, the transport sector and insurers.

“With our roadshow, we’d like to draw attention to the great importance of safety systems in trucks and enter into a dialogue with the various interest groups”, said Andreas Renschler, member of the Board of Management of DaimlerChrysler AG with responsibility for the Truck Group and Buses. “Traffic can be made even safer through the use of assistance systems. Any accident injury or traffic fatality is one too many.”

Following the introduction of ABS, EPS and ASR in the 1980s and electronically controlled braking systems with disk brakes ten years later, more safety and assistance systems were launched for Mercedes-Benz trucks beginning in the year 2000. These included the Lane Departure Warning System, the Stability Control, the Roll Control and the Proximity Control.

Since rear-end collisions represent a sizable proportion of the accidents that occur in heavy-duty transport on European roads, the accident researchers expect the widespread use of Active Brake Assist to lead to a noticeable reduction in the number of accidents involving fatalities and serious injuries.

In contrast to the proximity control system, the Active Brake Assist initiates emergency braking when there is an acute danger of a rear-end collision with a vehicle ahead. It uses the three radar sensors of the proximity control system, which identify moving obstacles within a defined range in front of the truck and in the process continuously determine the speed relative to the vehicle ahead. If the traffic situation does not change and an accident is unavoidable, the driver first receives a visual and an audible warning. If the risk of a collision increases, partial braking (30% of braking power) is initiated to give the driver a further warning. If the driver still fails to react, the system automatically implements an emergency stop. Although the Active Brake Assist (emergency braking system) cannot actively prevent accidents, the application of the full braking power can reduce the collision speed and, therefore, the severity of the accident and its consequences.

No other commercial vehicle manufacturer in the world invests more in the development of new safety systems than DaimlerChrysler. Moreover, active safety is always a focus of development. The task is to prevent accidents from the outset or, alternatively, to develop systems that intervene automatically in order to greatly reduce the immediate effects of accidents.

The effectiveness of such assistance systems is undisputed, yet the number of them installed in vehicles is much too low. “Among other factors, this is because the transport companies that would choose to install safety technologies are still offered too few incentives to do so”, said Renschler. He therefore advocates that everyone who profits economically from reduced accident figures should also work toward making their use more widespread. That means the insurance industry, from the auto insurers to the providers of health and life insurance to the employers’ liability insurance associations.

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