One of the most prevalent activities for many tow truck companies in Arlington, Texas, and surrounding areas, is providing towing after an auto accident. Even minor crashes can leave some types of vehicles inoperable and in need of a tow. However, with some newly manufactured cars, SUVs, and trucks, this is starting to change.
According to a recent article in Consumer Reports Magazine safety systems in newer vehicles include:
- Automatic emergency braking (AEB): Brakes are automatically applied to prevent a collision or reduce collision speed.
- Forward-collision warning (FCW): Visual and/or audible warning intended alert the driver and prevent a collision.
- Blind-spot warning (BSW): Visual and/or audible notification of vehicle in blind spot. The system may provide an additional warning if you use your turn signal when there is a car next to you in another lane.
- Rear cross-traffic warning: Visual, audible, or haptic notification of object or vehicle out of rear camera range but could be moving into it.
- Rear automatic emergency braking (Rear AEB): Brakes are automatically applied to prevent backing into something behind the vehicle. best brand of steroids This could be triggered by the rear cross-traffic system, or other sensors on the vehicle.
- Lane-departure warning (LDW): Visual, audible, or haptic warning to alert the driver when they are crossing lane markings.
- Lane-keeping assist (LKA): Automatic corrective steering input or braking provided by the vehicle when crossing lane markings.
- Lane-centering assist: Continuous active steering to stay in between lanes (active steer, autosteer, etc.)
- Adaptive cruise control: Adaptive cruise uses lasers, radar, cameras, or a combination of these systems to keep a constant distance between you and the car ahead, automatically maintaining a safe following distance. If highway traffic slows, some systems will bring the car to a complete stop and automatically come back to speed when traffic gets going again, allowing the driver to do little more than pay attention and steer.
Safety features are a must for some car buyers while others aren’t yet sold on the technology preferring to rely on their own driving skills. For many consumers, how a vehicle performs in controlled tests by manufacturers is one thing, but how a driver utilizes automatic safety features in real life is quite another.
The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety – Highway Loss Data Institute reports in their first study that “vehicles equipped with front end crash prevention are much less likely to rear-end other vehicles.” This information was obtained by using actual U.S. police-reported crash data and the institute found that systems with automatic braking had a 40 percent reduction in rear-end crashes. They also found that autobraking reduced injury crashes significantly.
How does this affect the towing industry? Most reputable towing companies in DFW are all in favor of increased vehicle safety as they, and their family and friends, drive throughout the DFW metroplex daily. Automatic safety features, unfortunately, have not negated vehicle crashes altogether and until they do, premier towing companies in Fort Worth, such as Titan Towing, will always be available, day or night, to help stranded motorists recover from vehicle accidents.
