The World Health Organization estimates that approximately 1.2 million people are killed and over 50 million injured in traffic accidents every year. Traffic accidents cause significant human suffering and are a large burden on society. It is a prioritized challenge to reduce accidents, where advances in several areas must occur in parallel and interact in order to yield effects. Efforts are focused on three areas: safe traffic environments, attentive drivers and safe cars. Volvo Cars is taking the lead with a vision that no one will be seriously injured or killed in a new Volvo car by the year 2020. Parts of our safety innovations and continuous safety work are:
- Traffic Accident Research Team: To design cars that offers very good safety in a collision and also to prevent accidents, our own team has today investigated over 36,000 real traffic accidents. This team has been active since 1970.
- Driver Alert Control: Studies show that up to 90 percent of all accidents are caused by driver behaviour. To prevent accidents caused by for example tiredness we have designed this system which warns the driver when the driving pattern is starting to become irregular.
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Volvo City Safety film |
- City Safety was launched in 2008 and assists drivers in avoiding collisions at low speeds. To the right you can see more of how the system works.
- Collision Warning with Full Auto Break and pedestrian detection will assist the driver to avoid pedestrian accidents, which are common in city traffic.
- Alcoguard exists since 2008 with the aim of preventing drivers from driving under the influence of alcohol to reduce this kind of accidents.