Driver Assistance Technologies (DATs)

If you are in the market for a new car, you should consider purchasing a vehicle with driver assistance technologies (DATs). DATs are applications built into your cars’ computers that warn you if you are at risk of an impending crash. Some DATs are designed to take control of your vehicle to avoid a collision.

Below are descriptions of some of the DATs available on new cars:

Forward Collision: monitors your vehicle’s speed, the speed of the car in front of you, and the distance between the cars. If your car gets too close to the car ahead, the system will warn you of an impending crash.

Automatic Emergency Braking: applies the vehicle’s brakes automatically in time to avoid or mitigate an impending forward crash with another car or pedestrian. The system will provide automatic braking if you have not acted to avoid a crash.

Adaptive Cruise Control: automatically adjusts the vehicle’s speed to keep a pre-set distance between you and the car in front of you.

Lane Departure: monitors lane markings and alerts you when it detects that your vehicle is drifting out of its lane.

Lane Centering/Lane Keeping: monitors the vehicle’s lane position and automatically and continuously applies steering inputs needed to keep the car centered within its lane.

Blind Spot Warning: alerts you with an audio or visual warning if there are vehicles in adjacent lanes that the driver may not see when making a lane change.

Blind Spot Intervention: prevents a collision with a vehicle in your blind spot. If you attempt to change lanes, the system automatically applies light braking pressure or provides steering input to guide the vehicle back into the original lane.

Rear Cross-Traffic: alerts you of potential collisions while in reverse that may be outside the backup camera’s view.

Rear Automatic Braking: If the system detects a potential collision while m reverse, it automatically applies the brakes if a crash is imminent.

In 2019, 36,096 people died in motor vehicle crashes. Many of these accidents could have been prevented if their vehicles had been equipped with driver assistance technologies. Unfortunately, the average age of cars on the road is more than 12.1 years, so most of these cars do not have DATs.

If the negligence of another driver has injured you, contact the experienced personal injury attorneys at Bell and Pollock.