by Lori Cunningham
In June, Ford invited me to a three day Symposium entitled Forward with Ford. I was able to choose three learning tracks to learn more about what Ford is doing to meet today’s and tomorrow’s trends. This post covers what I learned from the Safety for All Ages track.
I found Ford’s Safety for All Ages track to be very interesting. To start off the session, they brought in two outside experts. Dr. Wang, a Detroit trauma surgeon who has seen way too many car accident victims and Dr. Charles Sophy, the Medical Director for the Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS), the nation’s largest Child Welfare System. You may recall I had the opportunity to interview Dr. Sophy last August. My discussion with him started my interest in teens and cellphones and the series: Teens & Cellphones: A Primer, Manners, Safety, and Sexting.
Dr. Wang and Dr. Sophy’s discussions were pretty interesting. Please see these articles for notes and slides from Dr. their presentation:
Ford’s Approach to safety covers babies to seniors. They do thorough testing and employees at times don a pregnancy suit to better understand the needs and concerns of pregnant women.
Ford has identified these key trend drivers with regards to Safety:
1. Information Addiction – we are obsessed with information and constantly seeking it.
1. 24/7 news – we want to know what’s happening as news happens, not just when a news show reports on it later.
3. Sense of Vulnerability – due to crime, terrorism, and increased hacking, we don’t feel as secure as we once were.
4. High-Speed Crash Risks – we are worried about other drivers who may not be as safe, or about our teens driving at rates faster than the posted speed limit.
5. Women – buy more vehicles than man – for the first time ever and women buy more safety focus products than men.
Seatbelts are still the number one factor in saving lives in car crashes. Ford has delivered top safety ratings more than any other manufacturer.
Ford uses real and digital crash testing to turn what they learn into innovative solutions. While at Ford, I had the unique opportunity to watch a crash dummy test. Apparently, it was the first time that the media was invited to view one. Unfortunately, we were not permitted to take video, but the crash was pretty impressive…and a bit chilling. Fortunately, the crash test dummy survived!
Ford has hired safety restraint specialists to learn how to better restrain and secure infants and children. According to one specialist, 80% of child seats are improperly installed. Side mirrors, headrests, restraints, and safety belts are not used properly.
Inflatable Seatbelt
To help combat against possibly severe bodily injury, Ford created the first rear inflatable seat belts in the industry. The seatbelt restraint looks like a normal belt, but upon impact, will inflate to protect backseat passengers. This feature will be especially helpful for kids and the elderly. The inflatable seatbelt is available now in Ford Explorer 2011 and will be appearing on more models soon.
MyKey Technology
For years, parents have had concerns about handing their keys over to teens. Now they can ease those concerns by programming the car key through a car interface with allowable top speed and radio volume maximum before before giving keys to their teen. I’ve seen other tech devices that alert parents of how fast a car has been driven after the fact, but MyKey is even better and allows the parent to have more control until the teen is more experienced.
Ford Driving Skills
To further demonstrate Ford’s commitment to safety, the company created the Ford Driving Skills program which help parents and schools educate kids in making the transition to safe driving behaviors. Ford’s Driving Skills is meant to supplement the normal driving training program.
This program has reached hundreds of thousands of teens online as well as in person. In fact, Ford is expanding the Driving Skills for Life by going to 20 additional cities this Fall.
For those of you with teens going through driving programs right now, I’m sure you’ve probably noticed, they’re quick to point out how you are not driving properly.
It is impotent to be good role models behind the wheel. Teens first lessons of how to act come from watching their parents as children. In the chart above, you can see the direct correlation between teens observing their parents actions and repeating them when they themselves are behind the wheel.
Crash Avoidance Technologies
Ford has been working on some very innovative technologies to aid drivers in avoiding crashes. Forty percent of all accidents are rear-end collisions. One more second of preparation would have avoided 90% of these collisions.
Knowing these statistics, Ford has created new collision warning with brake support technologies that help prevent rear-end collisions. And it’s not just something they are just researching, they are testing it in the field now. In fact, on our last day with Ford, we were treated to various exercises on their test track. One of these exercises was to ride in a car with collision avoidance software. It really works.
Ford Intelligent Vehicle Tech
Utilizing GPS and WiFi technologies embedded in each car, drivers can be forewarned of impending dangers including cars running traffic lights, unsafe lane changes, and even if a car two cars ahead of you stops and the car in front of you quickly changes lanes to miss it, you will be warned so you can react quickly.
Ford is doubling their investment on intelligent vehicles – using an advanced form of WiFi together with GPS so cars can talk with each other. Ford knows that this technology will only work if all cars utilize the GPS and WiFI signals so they can talk to each other. So they are leading the expansion of this technology to other car manufacturers and working with the government to make it a safety standard for all cars. They plan on creating a kit so consumers with older cars can retrofit their car with this technology as well. Very impressive. And let me tell you, the technology works, as we tested out several scenarios with other cars at the test track. I can’t wait to learn more about the availability of these great life-saving technologies.
More from Forward with Ford:
- Protecting Children and the Elderly in a Car Crash
- Forward with Ford: 3 Days in Detroit
- 5 Tips When Talking to Your Teen about Car Safety
*Ford paid my expenses for the flights and lodging. All opinions are my own.
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