Popular Driver Safety Assist Features and What They Do

Safety and driver assist features have become more and more prominent with each passing year. Every major auto manufacturer has their own safety suite, consisting of advanced driver aids, collision mitigation systems, and even semi-autonomous driving technologies. So what are these systems, and what exactly do they do while you’re on the road and driving (or even parking)? Well, driver safety systems can completely change how you engage with your vehicle throughout Durham, covering everything from highway traveling to inner-city driving.

Knowing what these systems are and how they operate can also help you to better scout what sort of used cars for sale near Durham might best suit your driving habits both in and out of the city, as well as how to prevent collisions and enhance the safety of your travels whether you’re alone or with your family. That’s why we’re going over some of the more popular safety features in modern vehicles and what they do. This should make it easier for you to shop for the right kind of vehicle that has the safety features you find appealing or helpful for aiding you in getting from one destination to the next.

Driving Assists

One aspect of the multi-functional safety system present in most vehicles today is driving assists. This includes a number of systems, such as lane keeping and lane centering assistance, that help the driver maintain the current lane they’re in by watching the lane markers and offering alerts or providing steering assistance. Lane-keeping assists sometimes work hand-in-hand with automatic steering assists. Typically, automatic steering assists can help keep a vehicle in its lane or sometimes take over to avoid collisions if the sensors detect another vehicle coming into the lane.

Driving assists also work with parking, such as front and rear parking assistance, as well as parallel parking assistance. Some basic parking assists work with the front and rear cameras to help provide you with a clear view of the vehicle while gently aiding you into the parking space. Other vehicles offer more advanced parking assists, where the vehicle will automatically adjust itself when parallel parking or backing into a parking space, which can greatly reduce potential collisions or accidents.

Another useful driving assist is adaptive cruise control, which can dynamically adjust speed to match traffic without driver input. This system can be programmed for your preferred following distance and will use cameras or radar to maintain that distance from the vehicle ahead of you. It’s very useful if you want to use cruise control and limit any bumper-to-bumper incidents. Adaptive cruise control is ideal for drivers who commute a lot along I-885 if you want to reduce some of the stress during long drives.

Driver Awareness Assists

Driver awareness assists are designed around warning the driver about potential hazards. These are intended to alert the driver without taking any control away from the driver and are very useful for maintaining your position, maintaining your lane, or avoiding potential accidents. In some cases, the driver awareness systems are designed to alert drivers about certain safety measures before you even pull out of your driveway, such as buckling your seatbelt before putting the vehicle into gear.

Other awareness features include rear cross-traffic alert, which alerts you to any vehicles passing behind you while in reverse. By using rear-facing radars, rear cross-traffic alert will show if a moving vehicle could potentially collide with your car. This is especially useful when backing out of a parking space with cars on both sides that are blocking your vision.

Rear cross-traffic alert works in conjunction with side blind-zone alert, where vehicles in the blind spot of your car are monitored by the same radars. Lane change alert is a subset of side blind-zone alert, providing additional warning if you attempt to change lanes when a car is in your blind spot. The lane departure alert also works very similarly, where if the sensors on the vehicle detect that the driver is veering out of their lane and possibly off the road, it will send an alert to warn the driver.

Collision Mitigation Assists

The safety features in a lot of newer vehicles include collision mitigation. These systems are designed slightly differently from driver awareness and driver assist features in that their job is to detect and help prevent potential accidents or crashes, hence why they’re referred to as collision mitigation systems. Many modern vehicles include these systems to help assist drivers in avoiding collisions, sometimes even with aggressive intervention. They’re super useful to have on hand, especially if you regularly drive during rush hour traffic or if you frequently have to deal with bumper-to-bumper congestion, which you might encounter if you have to venture to Raleigh.

A very popular and mostly standard collision mitigation system is automatic emergency braking, which functions based on lidar, radar, or cameras installed on the vehicle. Nearly every recent vehicle has this installed as a standard safety feature. This system automatically applies the brakes based on sensors detecting objects crossing the path of your vehicle within close proximity. This applies both at low and higher speeds as a way to help mitigate potential collisions. Some vehicles also come with evasive steering support, which usually only activates when the sensors detect the driver attempting evasive maneuvers to avoid a collision––the system will aid the driver by automatically applying evasive steering to attempt to avoid a collision.

One of the other more common forms of collision mitigation is rear automatic braking, which utilizes rear sensors to detect hazards and apply automatic braking to prevent the vehicle you’re driving from colliding with any objects crossing your path. It’s slightly different from rear cross-traffic alert in that rear automatic braking not only alerts you about a possible collision but also automatically attempts to prevent the accident by applying the brakes. This can also work in conjunction with front and rear pedestrian detection, which will automatically apply the brakes if a pedestrian is detected in front or behind the vehicle.

Semi-Autonomous Driving Assists

When it comes to advanced driver assistance, the most technically significant assists are semi-autonomous driving systems. Various automakers have their own systems in place that can help you get from one destination to the next without having to do the driving yourself, such as Tesla Full Self Driving, GM Super Cruise, and Ford BlueCruise. The semi-autonomous systems essentially make use of the radar, sonar, and camera systems located around the vehicle to dynamically and automatically drive the vehicle to the intended destination.

Most of these systems make use of built-in navigation to traverse hundreds of thousands of miles of pre-mapped roads. Some systems offer more coverage than others, and some systems provide hands-free driving, while others provide semi-autonomous driving while requiring the driver to keep their hands on the steering wheel at all times. Most modern semi-autonomous driving aids offer over-the-air updates, so they can improve coverage, response time, and safety features through software updates.

Most of the current semi-autonomous driving assists are limited to select trims on select models, so they’re not quite as widespread as some other standard driving aids and safety assists. However, many of the semi-autonomous systems do provide coverage on select roadways throughout Durham. So, if you are interested in such a system for highway commutes within and just outside the city, shopping for a used vehicle with a semi-autonomous driving system would be a huge boon for long-range commuters.

Shopping for the Right Safety and Driving Assists

If you want more than just a standard daily driver, and you’re interested in a vehicle that offers lots of modern safety systems and driving assists, then we can help you find the perfect used car for sale near Durham with the most modern and advanced safety features available. Alternatively, if all you’re interested in are vehicles that come with the basic safety amenities for you or your family, we can accommodate that as well. Our inventory is filled with vehicles that come packed with the most common safety alerts, vehicle awareness features, and general driver aids. Feel free to reach out and contact us if you have any questions about any of the safety features mentioned in this article.