Ford's Got A Thing, and It's Called Radar Love

Such rabid consumer interest in safety-minded options flies in the face of the old “safety is a hard sell” tenant, and speaks volumes about modern consumers.

“Today’s customers are extremely informed about technology and advanced features available in vehicles,” says Sue Cischke, Ford group vice president for sustainability, environment and safety engineering. “They have an incredible amount of access to information, and we’re responding to their interest by offering vehicles with the technologies they want.”

Although the technology is not exactly new, I recently reacquainted myself with the systems' particulars when I drove a 2011 Ford Explorer Limited equipped with both the Blind Spot Information System (BLIS®) and the collision warning with brake support. First, lets get a few impressions of the new Explorer out of the way: It's big. As in, nearly everyone I encountered said something to the effect of “Hey, is that a new Expedition?” big. And any of you out there who may have owned one of the old solid axle station-wagon-body-on-a-Ranger-chassis Explorer, please leave all your previous conceptions at the door. It's new unibody construction is quiet, smooth, and it returned nearly 20 mpg in mixed driving. It's all the SUV 90% of the public needs. (Curiously, the same could be said for the comparatively-priced AWD Ford Edge -- but that's one for Ford's marketing department to ponder.)

Although particularly effective in vehicles that celebrate their blind spots (like the Explorer), BLIS is a feature in which tallow-necked drivers of any vehicle will delight. Sensors mounted on the outboard rear quarter panels send a signal, in the form of a small but easily visible warning indicator light on the corresponding side mirror, whenever a vehicle is present in the blind spot. In real world use, this seamlessly integrated feature performed flawlessly, offering an instantaneous electronic second opinion to the driver before he commits to a lane change. Ford has hinted that consumer interest is sufficient to make this feature available across their product line. Does this mean that, from these humble beginnings, we could be witnessing the birth of a safety feature soon to be as ubiquitous as the third brake light?

On the other hand, the adaptive cruise control and collision warning with brake support operate in bit more Orwellian fashion, going as far as to apply the brakes for the driver. Judging by the title alone, this feature sounded as annoying, and fraught with as much possibility for failure, as its name is long. Happily, this wasn't the case. For the cruise control, the driver is afforded some function control -- namely, the ability to adjust the minimum distance between your vehicle and the one in front of you before the system intervenes. In my experience, the system only kicked in once, reducing vehicle speed when we got within a distance that the computer had been programmed to believe was unsafe. Of course, when it happened I immediately suspected a malfunction. Then I realized the distance feature could be adjusted by a button on the left steering wheel spoke in conjunction with an intuitive graphic on the dash. After adjustment, the system never made its presence known again. The system is also designed to “warn the driver with a combination of visual and audio alerts” when it deems a collision could be imminent -- which seems to be a fancy way of saying, “the computer yells 'Oh s*#t!' a millisecond before you do.”

If favorable public opinion isn't enough, the 2011 Explorer, Edge and Lincoln MKX were the company's first mainstream vehicles to have their forward collision systems recognized as “recommended technology” from the NHTSA.

Considering it took consumers over a half-century to accept the seat belt, it's certainly inspiring to to see buyers line up, and willingly pay for, a safety device of any kind. 

 

Source: Exaust Notes