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About car security as a total concept of interconnected equipment
Ideally every car should have security mechanisms that detect any type of danger and allert the driver so that he can avoid them. If the dangers are of a kind that the driver is not capable of responding to timely, there should be automatic mechanisms that actively react and hinder any kind of injury. That kind of perfect security is not yet developed, but gradually the technial development is realizing total security concepts that come very near to the ideal purpose.
Security equipment have these main purposes.
- To detect a dangerous situation before any harm is done and so that it can be avoided
- To detect a harmful happening
- To stop a harmful happening in progress
- To help if harm allready has happended
Equipment to detect dangerous
situations
When you are driving, backing or parking it is useful to have simething to help
you to see what is around your car at all directions. Extra mirors mounted
strategically can help you to see what is behind the car. A camera with a
monitor in the cabin is a more advanced equipment to achieve this. Such things
are especially useful for great vehicles and when you are pulling som additional
equipment lik a camping cabin or hanger.
Equipment to detect harmful
happenings
There are many types of allarm equipment to detect people braking into your car,
development of a fire or a leakage of fuel or exhaust.
Such allarms consist typically of same sensing equipment called a detector, some central box that logically interpretes the signals from the detector and some type of output for the allarm like a signal sirene or signal light.
In modern equipment there is also a monitor that shows more presise what is detected. Advanced equipment typically have the ability to also send the signal to a mobile phone or a computer over the telephone network and use these devices as the allarming output unit and as monitor.
Sensory equipment that detect if the car is in danger for a collition or an impact, begin to become common. One special type of this is allarms used during backing or parking. But also systems that allert the driver of dangers of impacts during more active driving are coming. The difficulty of making such allarms, is to give a good indication of what type of situation that has emerged and the direction of the danger. The danger can be in front, at the sides, at the back, or directled squeerely, and this must be indicated. Also the danger can be a car situated too near, or something approaching.
Equipment to stop harmful
happenings
Active equipment to stop security break in progress typically consist of one of
more detectors that senses what is going on, a central unit that interpretes the
thing thing happening and some type of equipment to stop the harmfull process.
The detectors and logical unit can be common with the allarm or can be separate for the equipment to stop the process. Automatic fire estinguishers are such equipment. Automatic fire estinguishers can be used in vehicles, for example in the motor room, but not in the ecabin because the gas output from the estinguishers can harm people sitting in the cabin.
Slippery ground, as when there is snow, ice, loose sand or other loose or slippery materials on the road, will easily make the wheels loose grip, causing the wheels to spin, make the car loose stearing and direction or make breaking impossible. This can especially easily happen when one is breaking. ABS-breaks that let the breaks work intermittently with a high frequency decreases the chance of sliding and loosing stearing. Standard in new cars ere by now mechanism that regulates the torque from the engine down to a lower level when the wheels begin to spin so that the grip is regained, and the more advanced of these systems will regulate the torque at each wheel individually.
Authomatic systems that can hinder a collision that is about to happen before it is a factum, has a high priority in all manufacturers development plans. The system must engage the turning of the stearing wheels to direct the car in a safe direction and it must start the brakes. But the system must alo avoid turning the car away from one danger and directing it instead towards another danger. Turning the car away and breaking must also be performed at the right sequence. Technically such system exsist allready, but they are probably still too unreliable or expensive to be used extensively yet.
Equipment to help when
something has gone wrong
When something is going wrong or has gone wrong, for example when a collition has occures, it is important to be able to escape the car, and not be locked inside it. Locks that authomatically open when hit by an impact, is such a thing. Windows that can easily be pushed out after undoing in a simple way the points of fixation, is another important security component. A solid frame around the cabin will protect in from being crushed flat and will hinder the doors from being stuck by deformed frames.
When a collition occurs, the energy in the movemnt must be relased gradually and lead away from the cabin so that people inside get as small impact as possible. Soft peformation zones in the front, the sides, and the back perform this task.
Authomatic collition pads that are blown up like a ballaon are by now standard equipment in all new cars. Ideally pads or pillows for protection against impacts should be placed all around the seats.