Particularly important, and nowadays simply unthinkable without them, are the following technical systems designed to ensure greater safety in cars – and as history proves, they have been doing a good job for a very long time now. The anti-lock braking system is standard nowadays. As a result, we hardly perceive them as anything special anymore. A car without ABS? – Who buys such a thing? It is interesting to note that this safety system in cars has its origins in aircraft construction. In order for the fast airplanes to stay on track when landing, at the beginning of the 20. The first tinkering with this system in the early twentieth century was already underway. The mass motorization after the 2. World War II and the rising number of accidents support the expansion of safety systems in cars.
In simple terms, ABS prevents the wheels from locking and thus keeps the vehicle on track, it remains controllable. Sensors are mounted on the wheels and constantly send signals to a control unit. The control unit in turn regulates the brake. In situations where the car threatens to break free, the brakes on the individual wheels are activated by the control unit – an alternation of applying and releasing the brakes.
During emergency braking, the anti-lock braking system in the car counteracts the impact of the head restraints in a matter of seconds.
A car without airbag is also hardly imaginable any more. Nowadays, it is more a question of the number of different air cushions than of their existence in general. For this reason, airbags are one of the most important safety systems in cars.
Central to the airbag are the acceleration sensors. They can measure speed increases and decreases and thus directly report delays. In the event of an accident (jerky impact on / against something including enormous deceleration with respect to. The speed) the airbag opens within 20 to 50 milliseconds and creates a buffer zone between human and car. The air cushion prevents the collision of the occupants with rigid elements such as the steering wheel, dashboard, bodywork, etc.
It all started with the driver and passenger airbags – they protect the driver from impact with the steering wheel and the passenger from the rigid dashboard. In the event of a collision, thanks to modern car safety systems, the head and chest end up in the airbag, preventing enormous forces from acting on the upper body, especially the spine.
Other airbag systems are u.A.:
– side airbag – head airbag – knee airbag – seat belt airbag – pedestrian airbag
In the past, cars were designed to be as rigid as possible. The occupants should be protected by this rigid, almost non-deformable bodywork. But in the event of an accident, the body could not absorb energy, instead passing it directly to the occupants.
Then came the idea of a zone that would cushion the forces of the impact – energy was to be absorbed by the deformation of the car body. The most important safety systems in cars now include the crumple zone, which every vehicle now has in various forms at the front, side and rear.
In this context, it is also interesting to note the division of cars into three zones – from the outside to the inside – from the soft edge to the hard core, as it were, with area 1 and 2 making up the crumple zones as safety systems in the car:
1. Area: Outermost, elastic body elements such as front bumper that cushion collisions at low speeds (such as parking bumps)
2. Area: Supporting structure of the car ("crashtubes"), which resist collisions up to 20 km/h and are inexpensive to repair.
3. Area: so-called survival space, which is designed to be as rigid as possible.
During the jerky impact in the event of an accident and the associated sudden change in driving motion, enormous deceleration forces act on the occupants. The head and neck area in particular are severely affected.
Similar to the other safety systems in cars, the head restraint also had its breakthrough in the period of mass motorization after the 2. World War. At that time, however, head restraints looked different than they do today: They were not integrated into the seat, but were attached to it.
In the meantime, they have become an integral part of the seats; it is hard to imagine a car without a headrest. Due to their adjustment possibilities, every passenger, no matter what size, can adjust the headrest exactly to him/herself.
Currently, active head restraints are becoming more and more common in our cars; they tilt forward during the impact and can thus catch the head again earlier – thus supporting the neck.
The safety system in the car par excellence – the seat belt. Of this there are different models in vehicles. A belt sensor beeps, for example, if someone is sitting unbuckled in the car. The seat belt can now look back on a history of more than one hundred years and has many forms and applications. The variety of belts is classified according to the number of points at which the occupant is connected to the body: From two-point belt to six-point belt.