It seems difficult to believe the idea of selecting a car for its safety features was once as foreign to motorists as the horse and buggy. But this has changed. Most — though not enough — Americans use their seat belts, the basic first step in occupant safety, and most believe in the overall efficacy of air bags, despite some recent bad publicity involving unexpected deployment. Injuries from air bag deployment — unexpected or otherwise — have involved a disproportionate number of small women, leading the U.S. secretary of transportation to call for crash dummies that replicate women of small stature. Previously, crash dummies were adult males only, although for many years, safety experts at General Motors have focused on the unique needs of women in crashes. More and more attention has also been given to child safety. We've come a long way since the days when a mother rode in the front seat with her child in her arms. Child-safety seats, now built into many products, are a staple of child rearing. Today, safety is of paramount concern to everyone involved in automaking, from manufacturers to suppliers, to the government and to consumers.

Automated Highway Development
The automated highway system, about which much has been written, has reached the point where researchers at the University of California's Berkeley campus have boldly offered test drives to journalists. The stated goals of an automated highway system are anything but modest: relieve traffic congestion, avoid the cost and environmental impact of building new roads, have fewer traffic accidents and related delays, allow higher speeds and take stress out of driving in traffic.

The system, being developed by a government-private industry consortium, uses a typical American family sedan, the Buick LeSabre. The car debuted last summer in a demonstration held at an off-highway site, and 10 of them are now operated by non-researchers over a specially fitted stretch of Interstate 15 near San Diego, Calif.

The LeSabre "robocars" have been fitted with magnetometers, sensors and computers that are mounted in small boxes on the front and rear bumpers. The devices detect magnetic fields emitted by cigar-shaped ceramic magnets implanted every four feet along the roadway. A Pentium computer then processes this data and controls a servomotor added to the LeSabre's power-steering system. To maintain speed and a safe distance from other vehicles, a sensitive radar system precisely locates the cars ahead and behind. Radar sensors communicate with the onboard computer, which can instantaneously control the brake and throttle functions.

One journalist says, "When all the systems are working, driving becomes riding. It's an eerie feeling to be sitting behind a steering wheel which turns itself while you try to keep your right foot away from the brake and accelerator pedals."

Eventually, as highways equipped for automated operation increase, automated-highway components will be integrated into future vehicles.

Anti-Whiplash
All of us dread being rear-ended by another automobile, and now Delphi Automotive Systems has done something about it. A new seat and head-restraint system that the company calls the Catcher's Mitt cradles the motorist's body during a collision in much the same way a baseball glove envelops a baseball.

In a rear-end collision, the occupant of the struck car is usually injured because his head and torso move in opposite directions. The head is thrown back by the force of the crash, and the torso is first shoved forward and then backward. To minimize these forces in opposition, Delphi engineers, in effect, used the crash energy to keep passengers pressed into their seats. The engineers had a steel frame built around the outer dimension of the seat and a horizontal bar placed in the seat back as a lumbar support. On impact the head restraint rises and pushes the head forward. The head restraint stays with the seat as it moves backward, creating what Delphi calls the "catcher's mitt effect:" the head and body move together, and the seat cradles the occupant and pulls him downward on impact.

A Delphi executive has said that the new system could reduce whiplash injuries by as much as 40%.

Volvo, a company that has worked hard to develop a reputation for safety-mindedness, calls its anti-whiplash system WHIPS (Whiplash Protection System). Aimed at preventing or reducing neck and back injuries in a rear-end collision, the front-seat backrest moves backward and the head and upper body are supported in a uniform manner. The backrest then tips backward to prevent the forward whiplashlike movement.

Electronic Stability
Hardly idle since providing Volkswagen with the first onboard computer in 1968, the Robert Bosch Corporation recently introduced its Electronic Stability Program, or ESP. This is an extension of traction control and antilock braking systems, and it maintains stability instantaneously in most skid situations. ESP operates independently of the driver's action even when the car is free-rolling. Once it senses a loss of stability, such as a lateral skid, the system may activate an individual wheel brake or any combination of the four, stabilizing the vehicle and reducing the danger of an uncontrolled skid.

Night Vision
General Motors will offer a night-vision system option on some Cadillacs, starting with the year 2000 model. The system uses infrared technology to detect people or animals in the dark or past the glare of an oncoming car's headlights. Once danger is detected, the system displays black-and-white images that resemble photo negatives on the lower part of the windshield in an area about four inches high and 10 inches wide. The system is heat sensitive and can even detect a person lurking in the bushes as you park in your driveway.

"It's a supplementary system," says John Smith, general manager of GM's Cadillac Division. "You're going to be able to see three to five times farther down the road than with your low beams and three times farther than with your high beams." Regular headlights allow a driver to see about 100 yards. With night vision, drivers should be able to see up to 500 yards.

Automatic S.O.S.
You may already have a navigation system in your car that tells you where you are and how to get where you want to be. But we will soon see systems that tell others where you are. A Japanese consortium that includes Daimler-Benz Japan, Matsushita Electric and Nippon Telegraph and Telephone is offering an auto-safety service that automatically notifies authorities in the event of an accident or other emergency. The service, launched on September 1, consists of an onboard sensor that senses the activation of air bags, belt tensioners or a vehicle rollover and transmits the car's registration number, location and time of accident to an operations center. The operator then notifies the police and fire departments after confirming the details of the incident. The system can also be driver-activated. Daimler-Benz was involved in the introduction of a similar system in Germany earlier this year.

Ergonomics Contributes To Safety
Ergonomics, reduced to its simplest automotive definition, is the placement of controls and other components and devices that are driver-used or driver-operated in the best possible locations. Automakers devote an extraordinary amount of research and development time on ergonomics, not just for customer convenience, but for safety reasons.

Putting often-used controls as close to the steering wheel as possible helps the driver maintain concentration. For example, if a sudden downpour erases visibility, the driver does not have to search for the wiper control or take his hand completely off the wheel in order to operate the switch. Proper lighting of controls and creating distinctive surfaces identifiable to the touch also aid the safety effort. If you want to adjust the climate-control system or change a radio station in the dark of night, you should not have to turn on a light, take your hand off the wheel or take your eyes off the road in order to find the desired control. More and more cars have reduced their controls to a safe common denominator. And the progress is not limited to cars. New GMC pickups allow the driver to adjust the truck's Bose sound system using controls mounted on the steering wheel.