Mankind's efforts to automate every mechanical process in our day to day life to not only simplify the activity

but also make it safer.

In general, where possible, human involvement in mechanical processes is being limited to reduce the possibility of human error, and where it is difficult, safeguards are in place to protect in the event of a malfunction or an accident.

 The automobile has also evolved in exactly the same fashion with the only "simple" complication being that the consequences of human error can vary between a minor scratch on the bumper to a pile-up on a motorway.

Active safety
Active safety is about avoiding collisions and other incidents before they happen. Accidents can be possible to avoid by combining sensor technology, vehicle communication and on-board computers, enabling vehicles to communicate both with each other and with their surroundings. When cars get smarter they can compensate for the human factor that is the main cause of traffic accidents. For example, a car can be braked automatically if it approaches an obstacle at too high a speed, and automatic systems can take control if the car goes into a skid.

Passive safety
To passive safety systems as these have been developed to provide protection when a collision has already occurred , such as safety belts and airbags,. Active safety can be very effective, but it is conditional on the systems being reliable, i.e. that they deploy at the right moment and not otherwise. For safety reasons, these tests must be carried out on special test tracks. Until now, there has been a lack of environments where active safety systems can be tested.Current tests are therefore often run in vehicle simulators.

 The period up to 2010 is expected to witness significant progress in terms of integration of vehicle stability systems (particularly with steering and braking initially, followed by suspension) and the introduction of new driver warning systems (such as lane deviation warning and blind spot detection systems). Collision avoidance and driver warning systems will witness significant improvement in technical capability owing to the introduction of short and medium range obstacle sensing technologies, market penetration is expected to be limited owing to the cost of the features.

Passive Safety - Refining Protection

The last half-century, in terms of passenger car safety, was about inventing systems to ensure the protection of occupants as there was no way to directly or indirectly influence the behaviour of the driver or the vehicle. Today, while front airbags and seatbelts are standard in all passenger cars in Europe, the growing concerns for side impact protection - directly and indirectly attributable to the side crash tests introduced by the EU and EURO NCAP- have resulted in the high installation rates of front side and curtain airbags.

 These innovations have reduced the number of occupant fatalities, They have raised the bar for occupant protection from ensuring the survival of occupants to reducing the seriousness of injuries suffered. Major challenges that identifying the characteristics and position of the occupants, and managing the fractional span of time available for triggering the different restraint systems.

 Passive safety also encompasses the area of partner protection, which involves minimising the damage inflicted on other road users. While occupant protection has improved multi-fold, it has been at the cost of protecting other road users, particularly pedestrians. However, this is expected to change as vehicle manufacturers will introduce various solutions (through "softening" of the front of the vehicle or installing "intelligent" systems such as hood-lifting) crash compatibility between different vehicle body styles. While these companies have achieved a significant degree of compatibility within their respective vehicle fleets, inter-brand compatibility is still a challenge owing to differences in the construction of vehicles across companies.

Upon impact,
Decelerated rapidly (when colliding with another vehicle or object) or Aaccelerated (when hit by a moving object such as another vehicle). Inertia causes the occupants to move toward to the area of impact. Restraint systems are required to reduce the risk of contact between the occupants and the vehicle interior caused by this occupant movement. systems primarily include Seat belts, ideally supplemented by seat belt emergency tensioning devices with force limiters where appropriate, and with air bags.

Available restraint systems for the EClass (W 211)

Available restraint systems for the E-Class (W 211)

Driver and front passenger air bags. The drivers front air bag is located in the center of the steering wheel, and the front passenger air bag is housed above th e glove compartment (or in place of the glove compartment in older models). They can be recognized by the "SRS" or "SRS AIRBAG" or AIRBAG lettering. Driver and passenger front air bags are designed primarily to help reduce the risk and/or severity of contact between the seat-belted drivers and front passengers head and chest and the interior components in front of them. The driver front air bag inflates in front of the steering wheel. The passenger front air bag inflates in front of and above the glove compartment. Driver and/or front passenger air bags are deployed in an accident generating a longitudinal vehicle deceleration rate meeting the systems deployment thresholds sensed early in the collision. The front air bag deployment can differ depending on seat belt usage. In vehicles equipped with a BabySmart air bag deactivation system (recognized by the BabySmart label on the right front door by the instrument panel), the front passenger air bag is only enabled and thus capable of deploying if the PASSENGER AIR BAG OFF indicator lamp is not lit. When the indicator lamp in these vehicles is off, the system does not recognize that a BabySmart child seat is installed on the front passenger seat. When the indicator lamp in these vehicles is lit, the system does recognize a BabySmart child seat in use, and the passenger front air bag will not deploy. In vehicles equipped with an occupancy sensor for the front passenger seat, the front passenger air bag is only enabled and thus capable of deploying if the sensor detects a certain minimum weight on the seat, or if the seat belt buckle is fastened. Note: Vehicles equipped with an occupant classification system are not equipped with the BabySMART system. A front air bag will not be deployed in a lateral rollover unless the rollover also generates a longitudinal deceleration rate meeting the systems deployment threshold sensed early in the collision.

 Special features of dual-stage front air bags. If the vehicle is equipped with dual-stage front air bags, the front air bag is initially inflated with a single inflator when a first activation threshold is reached. If a second threshold is reached, within the few milliseconds in which the determination to deploy is made, a second inflator provides additional inflation to increase the inflation rate of the air bag to help address the higher deceleration rate sensed with respect to the accident. If the vehicle is equipped with a front passenger weight classification system, the body weight of the front passenger is taken into account along with the accident severity and the seat belt status when calculating the air bag inflation rate. Knee air bags supplement the function of the knee bolster in headon collisions that exceed the deployment threshold.

Seat belt
Seat belts are vital The seat belt is the single most important restraint system in the vehicle. When worn correctly, Reduces the possibility or severity of the occupant striking the interior of the vehicle or the likelihood that the occupant will be ejected from the vehicle in an accident. hold the occupant in the proper position in relation to the air bag so that the occupant can benefit from its use.