Vehicle Safety Features and Advanced Technology

Let’s talk vehicle safety features! It seems like new technology is released daily to aid in keeping drivers and passengers safe on the road, so the wide variety of options can be confusing.

While each brand has slightly different names for their safety features, most are comparable across vehicle makes. In early 2020, the Department of Transportation endorsed a list of standardized names in an effort to promote standard language and reduce consumer confusion of safety features between brands.

Active Park Assist

This option will automatically steer your vehicle to assist with parallel or reverse perpendicular parking. How much it controls depends upon the specific brand and model you have, but some will also handle the gear shifts, braking, and accelerating.

Adaptive Cruise Control

Using radar and camera technology, this feature lets you set a cruising speed and a distance from the vehicle ahead of you. When it slows down, you automatically do too. When traffic speeds back up, you resume your preset speed and distance.

Some brands, including Ford, include a Stop-and-Go feature where the vehicle can come to a complete stop when the vehicle ahead of you stops.

Ford also includes Speed Sign Recognition in its Intelligent Adaptive Cruise Control package, which automatically adjusts the set speed of your vehicle to the posted speed limit.

Automatic Emergency Braking

When traveling at speeds less than 50 mph, this system alerts you if it detects a front-end collision is imminent with a vehicle ahead that you are following. It can also reduce the collision severity by automatically applying hard emergency braking if you have not already done so or by enhancing driver hard braking. This may even help avoid the collision at very low speeds.

Ford’s Auto High Beams

Automatic High Beams

Using a windshield-mounted camera, this feature removes the need for your to remember to manually turn your high beams off and on. It scans the road at speeds above 25 mph and on a very dark road with no traffic, the high beams will come on. If a vehicle with headlamps is approaching up to 2,000 feet or traveling ahead of you with taillamps visible up to 500 feet, the system will dim to low beams to reduce glare and avoid hindering the other motorist.

Evasive Steering Assist / Automatic Emergency Steering

Using a camera and radar, this option will help a driver maneuver around a slow or stopped vehicle in their path if the distance to the vehicle ahead is too short to avoid a collision by braking alone. It provides additional steering assistance support when the effort you’re applying is not sufficient.

Forward Collision Alert/Warning

This can alert you when it detects a front-end collision is imminent with a vehicle that you are following. It also can alert you when you are following a detected vehicle too closely.

Front Pedestrian Braking

At speeds below 50 mph, the system can alert you when a collision is detected to be imminent with a pedestrian directly ahead. It also can help reduce the severity or avoid a collision by automatically applying hard emergency braking if you have not already done so, or by enhancing driver hard braking.

GMC’s Head-Up Display

Head-Up Display

This feature lets you select information and key warnings from your Driver Information Center and project it onto your windshield, low in your field of vision, in order to help you keep your eyes on the road.

You can select from different page views and adjust the image brightness and position in order to customize it to your preference.

Lane Change Alert with Side Blind Zone Alert / Blind Spot Warning

This safety feature can help you avoid lane change crashes by providing side-mirror alerts when a moving vehicle is detected in a side blind zone or is rapidly approaching a side blind zone.

Lane Departure Warning

Often confused with Lane Keep Assist, this feature alerts you when a lane marker is crossed.

Lane Keep Assist / Lane Centering

This feature can help you avoid crashes if you unintentionally drift out of your lane by providing gentle steering wheel turns when the system detects no turn signal or steering activity.

Rear Vision Camera / Backup Camera

This comes standard on many models. When traveling in reverse at low speeds, it provides a view of the scene directly behind the vehicle on the infotainment screen to help you park and avoid objects. There are also typically guidelines laid over the display image to assist in parking maneuvers by showing the vehicle’s path and available space.

Rear Park Assist/ Parking Obstruction Warning

This takes the rear vision camera one step further by alerting you that there are objects behind you as you drive in reverse at low speeds.

Rear Cross Traffic Alert/Warning

This feature can alert you to detected left or right cross-traffic that is behind you (like when you are backing out of a parking spot or driveway). It will display warning triangles with left/right indicator arrows in the Rear Vision Camera screen. The system will issue beeps to alert you – or if your vehicle is equipped with the Safety Alert Seat, it will provide directional pulses.

GM’s Rear Seat Reminder

Rear Seat Reminder

This safety feature activates when the rear doors are opened and closed up to 10 minutes before or anytime while your vehicle is on. Once you’ve completed your trip it will remind you to check the back seats using chimes and a message in the Driver Information Center.

Rear Camera Mirror

This allows you to either use a traditional inside rearview mirror, or a rearview camera mirror display that provides a wide, unobstructed view. It assists when you are driving, changing lanes, and checking for vehicles and traffic conditions.

Safety Alert Seat

This vibrates your driver’s seat cushion to notify you of a situation that may need your attention, based on the vehicle’s crash avoidance technology. Small motors inside the seat will generate vibrations on the left, right, or both sides of the driver seat cushion (along with visual alerts) indicate which direction the potential threat or situation is located.

If your vehicle has this available safety feature, you can choose these seat vibration pulses instead of audible beeps.

Chevy’s HD Surround Vision

Surround Vision Camera / Surround-View Camera

This 360-degree camera provides the driver with a “bird’s eye” view of the environment around their vehicle to assist in parking and avoiding hitting nearby objects during low-speed maneuvering. It helps to show driver blind spots, pavement markings, other vehicles, curbs, and other surroundings.

It displays an overhead video image of the vehicle on the center stack display using four cameras: the rear vision camera, the forward-looking camera in the front grille/emblem area, and two side-looking cameras mounted on each side mirror. Shifting into reverse will bring the Surround Vision Camera up on your screen.

GMC’s Transparent Trailer View

Trailer Back-Up Assist

Ford calls this Pro Trailer Back-Up Assist. Once you enter a few measurements, this option will track the trailer position while you are backing up and guiding the trailer. You simply rotate a knob left or right in the direction you want the trailer to go, while the system controls the steering wheel.

Chevrolet’s Advanced Trailering System offers similar features.

GMC’s ProGrade Trailering System provides a dynamic backing grid line on the Rear Vision Camera to help you line up your hitch. When in Hitch View and reversing toward the trailer, the Auto Electric Parking Brake Assist will automatically help hold your Sierra in place when you shift into park. This helps prevent the truck from rolling and shifting, which can cause the truck to misalign with the hitch. It also includes Transparent Trailer View, which helps you virtually see through your connected, compatible trailer. It pieces together camera images of the area behind the truck and trailer to show you the view on your infotainment screen.

Hopefully this guide helped you determine which vehicle safety features you want on your next vehicle, or what safety features your current vehicle offers!