Volvo has long had a reputation for prioritizing road safety. It was Volvo that invented the three-point seat belt. Now, the car company is taking on a big initiative – announcing on Monday that it will soon limit the top speed of all its cars to 112 miles per hour.
The initiative called “Vision 2020,” was first announced in 2007. and has been behind the technologies developed in its quest toward accident-free driving. In 2013, Thomas Broberg, Volvo’s senior safety advisor, outlining some of the technologies that Volvo has deployed or is developing. The technologies include pedestrian and animal detection, road edge and barrier detection, self-parking and vehicle-to-vehicle communication.
According to Vision 2020, “Technologies for meeting the goal of zero injuries and fatalities are basically known today – it is a matter of how to apply, finance, distribute and activate” those technologies.
Volvo has already deployed pedestrian and animal detection as part of Volvo’s City Safety System, which comes standard in the S60, XC60, XC70, and S80 models.
Electronic restriction technology
Volvo has found that in order to meet its goal of “zero deaths or serious injuries” by 2020, the company would have to address driver behavior. “We’ve realized that to close the gap we have to focus more on the human factors,” Chief Executive Hakan Samuelsson told Reuters.
To that end, Volvo is installing an electronic “speed limiter” that will apply to all cars made from mid-2020 onwards. Police vehicles will be exempt. Volvo is believed to be the first automotive company to install a cap on all its vehicles going forward.
Volvo says that speeding remains one of the main contributors to road deaths, along with drug and drink intoxication and mobile phone use.
Other technologies being developed
Volvo also plans to develop and install technology using cameras that monitor the driver’s state and attentiveness, and technologies that prevent people from driving while intoxicated — two other big factors in accidents, Samuelsson said.
Volvo is also exploring “geofencing” – a virtual geographic boundary defined by GPS technology. The technology would slow cars around sensitive pedestrian areas such as schools and hospitals.
Samuelsson said, “While a speed limit is not a cure-all, it’s worth doing if we can even save one life. We want to start a conversation about whether carmakers have the right or maybe even an obligation to install technology in cars that changes their driver’s behavior.”
