Data Bases • Custom Term Papers • Free Term Papers • Free Research Papers • Free Essays • Free Book Reports • Plagiarism? Links • Top 100 Term Paper Sites • Top 25 Essay Sites • Top 50 Essay Sites • Search 97,000 Papers @ DirectEssays.com • Search 101,000 Papers @ ExampleEssays.com • Search 90,000 Papers @ MegaEssays.com Free Essays • Term Paper Sites • Chuck III's Free Essays • Free College Essays • TermPaperSites.com • My Term Papers • Get Free Essays • Essay World • Planet Papers	Search Lots of Essays Back to Subjects - Engineering car safety car safety It’s a dark rainy night. You and your family are coming home from a late night family party. As a car is coming through an intersection another car cut in front of it. The driver decides to hit the brakes so you can avoid the car, but as he presses the brakes, the car loses control on the slick wet road. He is not able to gain control and at that point he has endangered the lives of himself and many others on the road. This is just one example of the many types of things that occur in our streets everyday. All that would have been needed to avoid this situation would have been a traction control system in his car, which would have detected that the car was skidding and would have applied the brakes to the necessary wheels, therefore correcting the skid. Automotive companies must mandate the installation and improvement of specific safety devices to make our vehicles safer. The opposing forces are against my argument mainly because of one reason, money. These are mainly uninformed people who are more concerned with monetary issues rather than the safety and well being of every of everyone on our streets. They see things differently, for example, instead of mandating some things such as a traction control system in a car, which costs no more than $200-600 (Krebs 30), could in the long run lower their insurance costs, and prevent them from a potentially harmful accident. They would much rather have $200-600 worth of accessories. It goes to show you that these people chose style and comfort over their lives and the live of others. Most of the automotive accident statistics are quite overwhelming, and they show for themselves why today’s cars must be made safer. 6,289,000 reported crashes, 3,200,000 people injured, and 41,345 deaths (car accident statistics). These are some of the statistics as of 1999 and they are expected to rise, due to the large number of automobile we are buying. By mandating the installation of certain safety devices in cars we can reduce these numbers drastically. Most car accidents occur at intersection, when someone makes a left turn in front of an oncoming car. The result of this is that the car turning gets broadsided on the right door of his car, also the weakest point of his car. So if most accidents are side impact collision why haven’t car manufacturers mandated the installation of side impact airbags. It makes no sense to have the most vulnerable part of your car be the least safe part in your car. Along with accidents not only comes a little headache or a broken bone, but injuries that stay with you forever such as whiplash and brain damage. Most brain damage incidents occur when you are involved in a side impact collision and the side of your head hits the glass (brain injury). Side impact airbags are just one of the many ways in which this type of life threatening injury can be avoided (whiplash). There is also whiplash, which hurls your head violently, and usually results in long term disability. Since whiplash is so hard to avoid, it can only be avoided by reducing the number of accidents on the streets. Also one of the most painful and most traumatizing injuries that we encounter in accidents are bone fractures, which occur in 65% of all accidents (Bush 11). So in turn by making these cars safer we can all avoid these painful, traumatizing, life-threatening injuries. Seat belts although they are the most effective safety device on cars must be made safer. Out of all people who died in car accidents, 63% of those were not wearing seat belts (seatbelts). This goes to show you the effectiveness of seat belt. Therefore automotive manufactures must mandate the installation of 5-point seatbelt on all cars. In all major race car organization such as NASCAR (National Association Stock Car Automotive Racing) they require these 5-point seat belt. Which is nothing more than a seatbelt that is buckled in 5 spots rather that the conventional 3. These race cars on some track travel no more that 80 mph, and they are equipped with full roll cages and extra reinforcement. So why should a normal stock car without all of these roll cages and reinforcements be rolling around in the streets without 5-point seatbelts. Currently in this country if we get a 90% seatbelt use there will be an annual saving to all Americans of over 8.8 billion dollars (seatbelts). So by the above info it is evident that seatbelts are very effective, but they need to enhanced for further effectiveness. Traction control is by far one of the most sophisticated safety devices that our automobiles can be equipped with. The main job of traction control is exactly what it says. It controls traction between your tires and the road. For example lets say that a car goes into a wet curve to fast and a wheel starts to slip, or lose traction. This device will detect that and it will cut off the power to that wheel and transfer it to the wheels which do have traction therefor it will correct the path of the almost out of control car. Currently we have about 20.2 % of all cars equipped with this system (Bush 10). This device if it is to be installed in all cars, will boost the price up no more than $200-600 (Krebs 30). This might be expensive to many, but insurance costs will go down because the risk of an accident is reduced, and who knows it might even save people something that has no price, their life. 40 to 1. That sound like an impressive ratio. That is about the same weight ratio of the average adult to 1 gallon of water, and remarkably enough that is also the ratio of an 18-wheeler tractor trailer to the average car on the road. Imagine that adult running with all of his or her force and kicking that gallon as hard as they can. Now switch the adult with the 18-wheeler and the 1-gallon of water with the average car. The result is not all that pretty, as you might imagine. Any collision that involves a weight ratio difference of 4 to 1 or greater is prone to have severe injuries and in 1999 alone there were a total of 394,000 reported accidents involving trucks over 10,000 pounds (Car Accident Statistics). Trucks of this size are not easily maneuverable and they are very hard to avoid hazardous situations with. The terror of being involved in an accident with such a large truck should not have to be faced by any one. These trucks must have a reduced weight limit and or must be only allowed to operate during certain hours for the safety of us all. Currently we have nad new brakethroughs in the automotive safety field. There has been the development of new systems such as: Obstacle Detection Devices, Night Vision, and Onboard Scanners. The Obstacle Detection Device (ODD) is composed of a sensor located in the back of your car which alerts drivers when they are to close to and object (Krebs 30). “Every now and then, news papers report a heart breaking story of a parent who backs out of the driveway and accidentally runs over his or her own children” (Krebs 30). This is just one of the many situation which can be avoided with this device. Night vision is currently being perfected for use in automobiles. The General Motors Corporation (GM) is currently installing this $2,000 option in cars such as Cadillac. According to GM this military base devise can increase the drivers vision in the dark up to 5 times what headlights would reveal (Krebs). It works with a night vision lens located at the front of the car and it take those images and projects them approximately on a 5X7 image in the lower part of the windshield. Last and probably the most effective of the three there is the onboard scanners. This device uses radar waves to alert the driver of cars in his or her blind spot (Smith 31). This can avoid the operator from slamming against a car he or she does not see do not even see and being spun out of control. These high tech devises will drastically reduce traffic accidents and could possible even save lives. An Anti-lock brake system (ABS), is referenced “as the most significant safety advance since the seatbelt”(Krebs 30). Instead of protecting the driver in an accident it is what will prevent him or her from getting into one (Krebs 30). ABS work when enormous pressure is exerted on the brake pedal. Instead of locking the brakes and letting the car skid out of control, it slowly depresses the brakes as it senses that they are locking. In 1998 this highly effective device was only installed in 59.2% of all passenger cars (Bush 10). It still boggles my mind why such a highly effective safety devise would but set aside and not be given any attention. Its time to quit ignoring these problems. Cars as well as the streets need to be made safer, and the way to do this is by mandating that automotive companies install these safety devices in their cars. From traction control, to anti-lock brakes, to 5point seatbelt, all the way to night vision and onboard scanners, all of them are equally important. Instead trying to cut a little money from the price of the car to sell it for more profit, automotive companies need to install these devices on cars, because the only thing they are doing is cutting a little time out of their lives and the lives of others. Bibliography: WORKS CITED “Brain Injury”. Available http://www.car-accidents.com/pages/brain_injury_ lawyers.html. . Bush, James W. Motor Vehicle Facts an Figures: Wards Communication, 1999. 10, 11, 84-89. “Car Accident Statistics”. Available http://www.car-accidents.com/pages/ stats.html. “Convictions Quashed in Fatal Road-Sign Crash”. Chachere Vickie. The Miami Herald. 26 March.2001. Available http://www.miami.com/herald/ content/news/local/ dade/digdocs/091369 .htm. Krebs, Michelle. “How to Buy a Safe Car”. Auto World Weekly. 10, April. 2001. 29-30. “Road Rage Endangers Innocent Drivers Too”. The Sun Sentinel. 25, March. 2001. Available http://sunsentinel.com/features/sfi-25mabbymar25.story. “Seat Belts”. Available http://www.car_accidents.com/pages/seat_belts.html. Smith, Steven Cole. “Swerving Car Hits Bus then runs Into Two Fort Lauderdale Homes.” Tzortzis, Andreas. The Sun Sentinel. 25 March. 2001. Available http://www. sunsentinel.com/news/local /broward/search/sfl-cbus250mar 25.story. “Volvo SCC. Is this the Worlds Safest Car”. Auto World Weekly. 10, April. 2001. 31. “Whiplash Injuries”. Available http://www.car-accidents.com/pages/whiplash. html Word Count: 1696
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