In 1959, Volvo gave us the seat belt—here’s what its safety team is building now

Its goal is no deaths or serious injuries in a new Volvo by 2020.

Read the whole story

 

[Dr Gitlin]

I am concerned by the no deaths in a new Volvo. The old Volvos that got the reputation for safety had slab fronts that were pedestrian and cyclist killers, and got driven by people with the mentality of "get out of my way, can't you see this is a Volvo?"

The last thing that is needed is a continuation of the car arms race to build the ever bigger and better and more protective vehicle at the expense of other, and probably poorer, road users.

Which is why it has things like pedestrian, cyclist, and large quadruped detection built into the AEB system, and Volvo are very big on preventing inappropriate speeding. But it looks like the EU moved first and will institute geofenced speed caps around schools and hospitals from 2022 anyway.

 

[jalaram]

I am concerned by the no deaths in a new Volvo. The old Volvos that got the reputation for safety had slab fronts that were pedestrian and cyclist killers, and got driven by people with the mentality of "get out of my way, can't you see this is a Volvo?"

The last thing that is needed is a continuation of the car arms race to build the ever bigger and better and more protective vehicle at the expense of other, and probably poorer, road users.

Maybe I read a different article, but I don't think they're simply building a bigger car. As a cyclist and runner, I get your point, but I also think solving the human issues (as the article states) will help people outside the car.

 

[Dr Gitlin]

Passenger Safety is even more justification to be moving to EVs asap.

Enough hand wringing...start making more EVs.

I'm not sure how the two are linked. You only have to look at the number of Tesla fatalities versus comparable luxury cars (including Volvos) to see you can die in an EV.

 

[Dr Gitlin]

"There will be tremendous acceleration with electric cars, but they will never be very fast"

Tesla: Hold my beer!

Even in a Tesla, the acceleration drops off a lot at higher speeds.

 

[Dr Gitlin]

So what happens when people cover up all the cameras with tape like they do on their laptops?

You'll have to wait until the production version deploys in a few years and try it out.

In a Cadillac CT6, if you block the camera, Super Cruise won't activate, but that only uses a DMS for that specific function.

 

[staggerdk]

I am concerned by the no deaths in a new Volvo. The old Volvos that got the reputation for safety had slab fronts that were pedestrian and cyclist killers, and got driven by people with the mentality of "get out of my way, can't you see this is a Volvo?"

The last thing that is needed is a continuation of the car arms race to build the ever bigger and better and more protective vehicle at the expense of other, and probably poorer, road users.

The old Volvo's might have been pedestrian and cyclist killers back then, but they weren't pedestrian, cyclist and driver killers, like it's competitors at the time. That was a long time ago. All cars are much safer now, inside and outside.

Also, if i could replace every Audi and it's driver with a Volvo and it's driver, i'd be very happy.

 

[matthew.kuiash]

I am concerned by the no deaths in a new Volvo. The old Volvos that got the reputation for safety had slab fronts that were pedestrian and cyclist killers, and got driven by people with the mentality of "get out of my way, can't you see this is a Volvo?"

The last thing that is needed is a continuation of the car arms race to build the ever bigger and better and more protective vehicle at the expense of other, and probably poorer, road users.

The old Volvo's might have been pedestrian and cyclist killers back then, but they weren't pedestrian, cyclist and driver killers, like it's competitors at the time. That was a long time ago. All cars are much safer now, inside and outside.

Also, if i could replace every Audi and it's driver with a Volvo and it's driver, i'd be very happy.

I'll one-up you on the Audi thing.

Range Rovers... especially the top of the range models. If you want to see a vehicle driven badly look for one of those. I swear 90% of the time I'm undertaken, cut up, someone hurtles past at 120+ etc it's a Range Rover.

I've no idea why.

The other day I saw one being driven at the speed limit. I actually had to comment on that.

 

[sorten]

I don't think Volvo needs to worry about discouraging "boy racers" from the brand.

 

[N9IWP]

Will it prevent folks from driving on flooded roads? That's a non-trivial cause of death -- either the water is deeper than the driver thought or the road is actually gone.

(cite: https://www.nws.noaa.gov/os/water/tadd/
Each year, more deaths occur due to flooding than from any other thunderstorm related hazard. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report that over half of all flood-related drownings occur when a vehicle is driven into hazardous flood water)

Brian

 

[ALittleTeapot]

"We don't want the raw data back. We want your head position in numbers we can use. We want your gaze vector in numbers."

That's all very well from a privacy point of view, but I don't see how it can ever work from a technical or legal point of view. As soon as there's a dispute - the car says the driver looked away, the driver says they didn't - you need to be able to see the raw data in order to figure out if those head position numbers are actually correct.

 

[PottedMeat]

It also doesn't mean Volvo (or anyone else) will be using the cameras to spy on you. In fact, the cameras won't even be able to save raw video. "To us, a camera that delivers video is a useless sensor," explained Mikael Ljung Aust, a researcher and driver behavior specialist with the company. "We don't want the raw data back. We want your head position in numbers we can use. We want your gaze vector in numbers."

how long before an insurance company says "come on, its already there - add in a trigger for unusual movements and a place to dump the buffer for us. we'll discount the owner's policy a few bucks"



what is that funky USB power tree in the relaxing dummies pic?

 

[Dr Gitlin]

It also doesn't mean Volvo (or anyone else) will be using the cameras to spy on you. In fact, the cameras won't even be able to save raw video. "To us, a camera that delivers video is a useless sensor," explained Mikael Ljung Aust, a researcher and driver behavior specialist with the company. "We don't want the raw data back. We want your head position in numbers we can use. We want your gaze vector in numbers."

how long before an insurance company says "come on, its already there - add in a trigger for unusual movements and a place to dump the buffer for us. we'll discount the owner's policy a few bucks"

Volvo seems to take this stuff pretty seriously, and a couple of other journalists asked them several times if the system could work as an event data recorder, saving video if there was a crash. The people from Volvo said no, it wouldn't, and they aren't planning on fitting a sufficiently large buffer to do that.

what is that funky USB power tree in the relaxing dummies pic?

A place people could recharge their phones.

 

[ChesterA...Daruthur?]

As a sports car enthusiast my knee-jerk reaction is to cringe as more and more techno nanny devices appear in cars. That being said, I think it is necessary as population and congestion increase coupled with the fact motor vehicles have produced more power than ~90% of the driving public need/can safely handle for 30+ years.

Bring us the Three Seashells, Volvo. And call it a day.

 

[n2ubp]

"American car manufacturers Nash (in 1949) and Ford (in 1955) offered seat belts as options, while Swedish Saab first introduced seat belts as standard in 1958.[6] After the Saab GT 750 was introduced at the New York Motor Show in 1958 with safety belts fitted as standard, the practice became commonplace."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seat_belt

 

[Sarty]

I want to make some sort of flippant comment like "zero deaths is obviously impossible, you're dealing with high energies and hard, fast-moving objects moving close to each other", but the US went about a decade without a death on a domestic-flagged airliner, and airplanes certainly pose similar challenges. So I won't be so flippant. It's not a completely achievable goal, but maybe it's more approximately achievable than we think. I salute Volvo for seeking to find out just how approximate.

 

[kubkubbub]

"Although we make every effort to cover our own travel costs, in this case Volvo flew me to Gothenburg and provided two nights in a hotel."

I really do appreciate the disclosure, and it's a large part of why I'm a dedicated reader, but it's unclear to me why Volvo provided travel and lodging. It doesn't seem like it would be cost prohibitive for Ars to cover it.

 

[r3loaded]

I am concerned by the no deaths in a new Volvo. The old Volvos that got the reputation for safety had slab fronts that were pedestrian and cyclist killers, and got driven by people with the mentality of "get out of my way, can't you see this is a Volvo?"

The last thing that is needed is a continuation of the car arms race to build the ever bigger and better and more protective vehicle at the expense of other, and probably poorer, road users.

The old Volvo's might have been pedestrian and cyclist killers back then, but they weren't pedestrian, cyclist and driver killers, like it's competitors at the time. That was a long time ago. All cars are much safer now, inside and outside.

Also, if i could replace every Audi and it's driver with a Volvo and it's driver, i'd be very happy.

Ha, not the Volvo drivers round here. They (mainly the XC60/XC90 drivers) have the same sense of entitlement and poor driving skills as the Q7, X5 and Range Rover drivers while carting little Tarquin or Emily to school half a mile down the road.

Volvo thinks the solution to the problem of distracted driving and intoxicated driving will be the introduction of a robust driver-monitoring system

Call me old-fashioned (despite being only of millenial age), but I still think the best solution for distracted/intoxicated driving is people taking responsibility for themselves for once in their self-obsessed lives, and tough penalties (driving bans, four figure fines and possible jail time) for people who deliberately choose to drive while intoxicated or tired. There are way too many people who are completely unfit to pilot a two ton metal cage on wheels at speed.

 

[close]

"American car manufacturers Nash (in 1949) and Ford (in 1955) offered seat belts as options, while Swedish Saab first introduced seat belts as standard in 1958.[6] After the Saab GT 750 was introduced at the New York Motor Show in 1958 with safety belts fitted as standard, the practice became commonplace."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seat_belt

ArsTechnica article above[/url]":10qrfzcs]the company has been responsible for in the years since it introduced the three-point safety belt as standard in 1959

The present article is about the 3 point safety belt, as it is still used today.
Same wiki page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seat_belt#Three-point

 

[bthylafh]

but the US went about a decade without a death on a domestic-flagged airliner, and airplanes certainly pose similar challenges

Irrelevant. Privately-owned cars see *far* less regulation of maintenance and operator training than airliners and their pilots, and that will never change.

 

[raphael_as]

Blurb under the first image states that the XC90 has been on sale since 2015 - is that in the US?

I ask because I had a 2004 XC90 (but in Europe and it was a brand new model at the time (either 1st or 2nd year).

Sort of surprised it took that long to come to the States, given the relative appetites for SUV/large cars between the two markets.

 

[wvmikep]

I am concerned by the no deaths in a new Volvo. The old Volvos that got the reputation for safety had slab fronts that were pedestrian and cyclist killers, and got driven by people with the mentality of "get out of my way, can't you see this is a Volvo?"

The last thing that is needed is a continuation of the car arms race to build the ever bigger and better and more protective vehicle at the expense of other, and probably poorer, road users.

The old Volvo's might have been pedestrian and cyclist killers back then, but they weren't pedestrian, cyclist and driver killers, like it's competitors at the time. That was a long time ago. All cars are much safer now, inside and outside.

Also, if i could replace every Audi and it's driver with a Volvo and it's driver, i'd be very happy.

I'll one-up you on the Audi thing.

Range Rovers... especially the top of the range models. If you want to see a vehicle driven badly look for one of those. I swear 90% of the time I'm undertaken, cut up, someone hurtles past at 120+ etc it's a Range Rover.

I've no idea why.

The other day I saw one being driven at the speed limit. I actually had to comment on that.

I've had a LR driver nearly kill me this past Saturday while on my bike.

 

[slowtech]

I would be interested in a short article on the state of "emergency stopping" functionality in autonomous car development. Isn't this what is required for Level 4 - getting the car to a safe stop without driver intervention?

I'm curious as to how (and if) this is implemented across the industry, and if it isn't, what plans different manufacturers have.

On a personal note, my grandmother had a stroke while driving - this is an important safety issue even outside of people not paying attention while their car is "self-driving".

 

[MacCruiskeen]

Also, if i could replace every Audi and it's driver with a Volvo and it's driver, i'd be very happy.

These days it is the Uber and Lyft drivers I find myself cursing the most when I am riding (which is every day), no matter what kind of car they have.

Though if Volvo invented a system that meant I no longer had to play the "are they drunk or on the phone" guessing game, that would be cool with me.

 

[Fred Duck]

Did you know?

Volvo is Latin for "I roll."

Nils Bohlin invented the modern three-point seat belt in 1958.

The Svensk word for safety belt is säkerhetsbälte.

A history of seat belts.
https://www.defensivedriving.com/blog/a ... eat-belts/

 

[AndrewClarke]

"We don't want the raw data back. We want your head position in numbers we can use. We want your gaze vector in numbers."

That's all very well from a privacy point of view, but I don't see how it can ever work from a technical or legal point of view. As soon as there's a dispute - the car says the driver looked away, the driver says they didn't - you need to be able to see the raw data in order to figure out if those head position numbers are actually correct.

The same way it works now. Current automobiles don't generally provide crash diagnostics of this sort, so there's no requirement that future vehicles have to save the data just because they could.

 

[Jordinat]

The crash test footage at the end is pretty neat. I like how the back left tire keeps spinning when the car is rebounding from the crash. Conservation of momentum in action.

 

[MacCruiskeen]

"American car manufacturers Nash (in 1949) and Ford (in 1955) offered seat belts as options, while Swedish Saab first introduced seat belts as standard in 1958.[6] After the Saab GT 750 was introduced at the New York Motor Show in 1958 with safety belts fitted as standard, the practice became commonplace."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seat_belt

From the same article:

"Volvo introduced the first production three-point belt in 1959.[15]"

 

[ChrisSD]

I am concerned by the no deaths in a new Volvo. The old Volvos that got the reputation for safety had slab fronts that were pedestrian and cyclist killers, and got driven by people with the mentality of "get out of my way, can't you see this is a Volvo?"

The last thing that is needed is a continuation of the car arms race to build the ever bigger and better and more protective vehicle at the expense of other, and probably poorer, road users.

Which is why it has things like pedestrian, cyclist, and large quadruped detection built into the AEB system, and Volvo are very big on preventing inappropriate speeding. But it looks like the EU moved first and will institute geofenced speed caps around schools and hospitals from 2022 anyway.

I wonder how they'll deal with people speeding TO the hospital due to an emergency. I can just imagine flying into the hospital with someone bleeding to death, and 4 blocks from the hospital getting reduced to 40kph.

Speeding while carrying someone who is bleeding to death should be something only done by experienced ambulance drivers with experienced paramedics. For everybody else there's a whole ton of things wrong with that scenario.

 

[HesAThug]

I am concerned by the no deaths in a new Volvo. The old Volvos that got the reputation for safety had slab fronts that were pedestrian and cyclist killers, and got driven by people with the mentality of "get out of my way, can't you see this is a Volvo?"

The last thing that is needed is a continuation of the car arms race to build the ever bigger and better and more protective vehicle at the expense of other, and probably poorer, road users.

Which is why it has things like pedestrian, cyclist, and large quadruped detection built into the AEB system, and Volvo are very big on preventing inappropriate speeding. But it looks like the EU moved first and will institute geofenced speed caps around schools and hospitals from 2022 anyway.

I wonder how they'll deal with people speeding TO the hospital due to an emergency. I can just imagine flying into the hospital with someone bleeding to death, and 4 blocks from the hospital getting reduced to 40kph.

If you were doing 100kph, and blocks are around 200m, then you arrive about 43 seconds later then you would have without a limiter.

Whether that makes a big difference to the outcome is unknown.