A look at the various past achievements in the field of passenger car safety raises the question whether any dramatic steps towards its improvement can still be expected. Will progress be confined to the optimisation of existing systems or does the future hold new substantial safety steps? This paper elaborates on the issue that the time available before a potential accident occurs can be used to improve the safety of occupants and other involved road users. Accident analysis confirms that this is feasible for about two-thirds of all accidents. The recognition of an imminent collision bears a noteworthy potential for accident prevention, reduction of accident severity and injury severity. The former boundary between active and passive safety thus fades continually. Based upon this it is possible to describe vehicle safety by a comprehensive approach encompassing seven escalation levels. This approach underscores the future intention of Mercedes-Benz to increasingly embrace preventive protection systems in the form of "collision mitigation" on the active safety side, and "PreSafe" on the passive safety side. This contribution, focusing on PreSafe, presents various protective measures and describes their advantages.
Abstract