Anything Volvo can do, Mercedes can do better…and without rubber cars too. Biglorryblog’s chum Nick Smith at Mercedes-Benz has sent me this short video clip showing the German truck maker’s ‘Active Brake Assist’ working on an Actros. Like the Volvo collision avoidance system it uses forward-looking radar to detect a stationary object in the truck’s path and if the driver takes no action it automatically applies the service brakes to avoid him running into the back of it.
What doesn’t come across in the video is that the Actros driver is actually doing nothing! I am told by my moles in Milton Keynes that it was travelling at 56mph. As you approach the line of traffic the system initially starts to shift down through the gears, it then sends an audible warning to the driver and if he doesn’t do anything it then slaps everything on. Judging by this impressive video clip… it does the job!
Presumably you will have to leave a safe braking distance in the first place? Therein lies a problem. If you leave such a gap on modern UK motorways, overtakers constantly fill it so you will be automatically braked every few seconds.
Until motorists (of every description) learn to leave a correct gap for the speed I feel such devices will be useless if not dangerous.
George