Mazda puts focus on safety

Mazda has started public road trials of its advanced safety vehicle, the Mazda ASV-4, as many of the world's major car manufacturers work towards eliminating life-threatening incidents on the roads. The new system uses vehicle-to-vehicle communications in a program to alert drivers of the presence of oncoming vehicles at blind intersections or being driven on twisting roads where visibility is limited.

By reducing driver error, the company hopes the new technology can lessen the severity of — or even eliminate — two-vehicle collisions at blind intersections, rear-end collisions and accidents when a vehicle is turning right.

Testing of the two-vehicle blind collision avoidance system has already started.

Also, road trials of the right-turn and rear-end collision avoidance systems will begin later this year. The trials, now into their fourth phase, are based on the Japanese Government's Advanced Safety Vehicle promotion plan, a program which has been designed to promote the development, practical application and wider use of ASV technologies to reduce the number of traffic accidents. The ASV project was launched by the Japanese government in 1991 as part of a drive to make the nation's roads safer.

The initiative was then expanded to include all domestic motor vehicles.

Test results from phase one to phase three have already resulted in the successful development by Mazda of various advanced safety technologies.

These include a rear vehicle monitoring system which can detect vehicles approaching from behind at highway speeds, and Mazda's Pre-crash Safety System.

This system uses milliwave radar to monitor the presence of oncoming obstacles.

It then alerts the driver and automatically applies the brakes if necessary.

The project's fourth phase started in 2006 and is due to finish in 2010.