Since the invention of the three-point seatbelt or Bela Barenyi’s crumple zone to enhance vehicle safety, safety technology has come a long way. Anti-lock braking systems, airbags and electronic stability control are now all mandatory for all cars sold within the UK, but what about other technologies that are designed to make the way you drive safer? This article looks at the top five safety features available in cars today and how they improve safety for you and other road users.

Adaptive Cruise Control

Referred to as Distronic Plus by Mercedes Benz, adaptive cruise control systems use forward sensor technologies to maintain a safe distance between you and the car ahead, up to a chosen maximum speed.

Not only helpful on motorways, adaptive cruise control aids drivers in heavy stop-start traffic too, slowing your car when the one in front reduces its speed and speeding up again when it’s safe to do so.

Lane Assist and Active Lane Keeping Assist

While a common feature for prestige vehicles such as Mercedes-Benz for some time, Lane Assist can now be found in many other new cars. When you drift out of your motorway lane, an alert will be given in the form of a buzzing sound, vibrating seat or steering wheel so you can correct your course.

Active Lane Keeping Assist goes one step further and will gently adjust your steering if you wander and don’t respond to the vehicle’s alerts, making sure you hold your position when travelling at higher speeds.

Reverse Parking Assistance

Reverse parallel parking is arguably one of the more difficult driving manoeuvres.  However, reverse parking technology now makes this a breeze and can be found in many manufacturers’ models, including Mercedes-Benz.  At the touch of a button and a gentle depression of the accelerator, your car will reverse steer itself into the car parking space you’ve found; relegating parking dints and scrapes to history.

Rear Cross-traffic Assistance

Mercedes-Benz combines this feature with their blind spot assist so you get both together, along with autonomous braking if needed. Rear-cross traffic assist (and blind spot assist) relies on in-built sensors that monitor the area at the rear sides of your car and notify you with both visual and audible alerts if another car is coming.

Automatic Crash Response

When things do go wrong, time is often of the essence and the speed that emergency services are notified and able to reach the scene can be the difference between life and death. Mercedes-Benz Emergency Call has been included as standard in all models since September 2014 and enables precise details of the car’s location, travel direction and extent of the damage to be sent to an emergency services advisor at the touch of a button.

This feature has such a positive impact on the results of accidents that the EU voted for these systems to be made mandatory in all new cars from the 31^st of March last year.

While each of these features is designed to enhance the safety of vehicles, it is important to understand how they work, and when they aren’t in operation. A study carried out by the American AAA Foundation and the University of Iowa found that as many as 80% of drivers relied on their vehicle safety and driver assistance packages a little too much – in some instances neglecting to carry out their own over the shoulder visual checks for motorcycles and pedestrians. The resulting report encouraged new car owners to read up on their car’s safety devices, ask their car dealers or car leasing company questions about these features, and make sure they understood the types of conditions they would and wouldn’t work in.

Our team at Mercedes on Lease are happy to answer any questions about the safety features of your Mercedes-Benz, or leasing conditions if you are considering leasing your next new car to access some of the latest safety technology available.

If you’ve heard about blockchain technology, the likelihood is that it has been in relation to bitcoin or another cryptocurrency. However, blockchain technology has seen vast changes in recent years and this decentralised, open ledger technology is being developed to do all sorts of clever things in support of everyday transactions, leasing contracts and even safeguarding our personal data online. One of them is to make dealings of all sorts, faster, more transparent and more secure for both parties.

As we hurtle towards a world incorporating the Internet of Things, Machine to Machine Transactions and Smart Contracts, it’s worth getting to grips with how blockchain technology might change even the most mundane of tasks, like refuelling or leasing your car.

 What is Blockchain Technology?

Blockchain is a list of records or data, called blocks, which are linked with cryptography. Each piece of data includes a cryptographic tag of the previous block to confirm and secure the link, a timestamp to show when it was modified and any relevant data. This information is stored across thousands of computers across the world and regularly updated so each computer or ‘node’ stores exactly the same information.

Because there is no central record in existence, the information is not only near impossible to hack or corrupt, it is also easily verifiable and public to all who have access to the chain with the correct keys.

Although blockchain technology was originally designed to create a new type of currency – Bitcoin –  the world is finding numerous other applications for this relatively new invention. One of which is machine to machine transactions – the ability for machines to trade goods and information between themselves without the need for manual input.

So What Does Blockchain Have To Do With My Car?

Currently, when your car is running low on petrol, diesel or an electric charge, you’ll find the nearest station that provides the fuel your car needs, top up the tank or battery and then pay with a card.

This payment system collects charges of a pound or two as it is processed, some are paid by the card user in account fees and others are paid by the merchant but passed to you in the price of the goods or minimum transaction allowances.

Blockchain enables the use of smart contracts to manage the transactions and remove the need for a middle man, the bank or card issuer in the above scenario, to be involved.

Refuelling with a blockchain enabled smart contract would look something like this:

You realise your car needs refuelling and publish a smart contract via an app to the blockchain. Your vehicle searches for a service station that can fulfil the smart contract’s needs as you prime the contract with digital currency to pay for the fuel needed. The petrol station views this transaction on the blockchain and identifies your vehicle has been authorized to fuel at their station. When you arrive at the pump, a short-range wireless protocol (e.g., Bluetooth) is used to verify your identity and the service station, and refuelling begins. Once completed, the station sends a transaction indicating the amount and type of fuel given and the smart contract calculates the payment for the petrol station, returning a deposit to the vehicle after subtracting the payment for fuel.

It typically takes 14 seconds to complete the payment after refuelling, costing around a third less than traditional payment methods.

Considering the imminent arrival of autonomous cars on our roads and the simplicity, transparency and security that blockchain technology is making possible, it may be that in a few short years, this type of technology will be an everyday part of our lives, not only for refuelling, but leasing a Mercedes and keeping your data secure too.

The UK’s Department for Transport wants to see fully autonomous vehicles in use on UK roads in just two years from now. Given the vast amounts of technology that’s required to make a driverless car actually work safely, that’s a big challenge. LiDAR, car to car communication, infrastructure to support autonomous vehicles on our roads and even the legislation pertaining to who’s responsible if a driverless car has an accident are all still being developed.

Yet, driverless cars or autonomous vehicles are already being tested on UK roads. The streets of London, Oxford, Milton Keynes and other areas have seen driverless cars from Jaguar Land Rover, Volvo and University of Oxford’s Oxbotica, moving along them over past months in order to test how various elements of their autonomous vehicle tech responds in live situations. While car manufacturers work on the hardware and software needed to make the driverless car dream a reality, the UK’s parliament is still getting to grips with the laws that will govern their use, and misuse.

Autonomous Vehicles on UK Roads

Given the will of the government to have autonomous vehicles in use commercially by 2021, it would be reasonable to think that much of the infrastructure, legislation and technology needed for this to be achieved were already in place. The fact is, much of the existing legislation for product liability, negligence and statutory negligence will be relied upon for apportioning blame if something goes awry with an autonomous vehicle and causes harm or damage – at least in the early stages. Legislation specific to the safe use of driverless cars isn’t expected to be ready before autonomous cars are using our roads.

At present, if you have an accident on the road, you stop the car, turn on your hazard lights, check for injuries and call the appropriate authorities. Then of course, you’ll exchange details with the parties involved, tell your insurer and give details of how the accident occurred.

For an autonomous car, the process will have to be different. The above system simply wouldn’t work if a driverless car was involved in an accident while transporting goods, children or returning to your place of work or other pre-programmed destination without any passengers at all. Even if you were in the car and not driving, would you be to blame?

Current Autonomous Vehicle Legislation

To date, the legislation pertaining to driverless vehicles is pretty sparse and there are more questions than answers. However, liability of insurers, accidents resulting from software alterations and missed updates, as well as the insurance company’s right to claim against the responsible party are covered in the Automated and Electric Vehicles Act 2018.

Details on how to apportion blame for an accident are still fairly sketchy and it’s assumed will be covered in the legislation we can expect to come into effect on or after 2021.

Questions such as ‘How long will owners of driverless cars legally have to install their car’s software updates? If an autonomous vehicle crashes as a result of a cyber-attack, malware or an undetected virus picked up by the infotainment system, who should be held liable? Will driverless car owners need third-party insurance and be required to install software protection programs for their car?’ are still being worked on by the Centre for Connected and Autonomous Vehicles, and the Department for Transport.

While these bodies work on the legal points of driverless vehicles, drivers are getting used to semi-autonomous driving with optional extras like Mercedes-Benz’s Driving Assistance and Drive Pilot packages. It’s thought that these developments will extend the pool of just 27% of people who are actually willing to ride in a driverless car.