Stable platform for safety options

Electronic stability programs (ESP) should be standard on every new car sold around the globe, helping to avoid accidents and save lives, says a Mercedes-Benz safety expert. He also says the system is so affordable, companies should not be able to plead cost as an excuse not to fit it and governments should be offering an incentive for buyers to option it.

“ESP has to become part of all cars worldwide,” says head of safety design and development at the German carmaker, Ulrich Mellinghoff. “At the moment only 20to 30per cent of all cars which are sold have ESP.

Mellinghoff says stability control is especially effective in preventing vehicles from serious impacts to the side — the area with the least ability to have inbuilt crumple zones when compared to the nose and tail.

He says the cost argument used by some companies for not fitting stability control doesn't hold up and, until it is a standard fitting, governments should offer an insurance discount to encourage buyers to option it.

“The realistic cost is about $US200 ($230) so this couldn't be a reason not to put it in each car,” he says. “For the customer it should be positive to have ESP and maybe pay less for insurance.”

Mellinghoff says both active and passive safety systems will continue to improve, but will never reach a stage where there won't be crashes at all.

“We can never get to a car that is uncrashable because there are some special situations where you can't do anything against an accident,” he says. “So I think we will always have accidents in the future, but we think what is realistic in the next 20 years is that accidents that severely injure people will be reduced to a minimum.

“In Germany — as an example — about 5000 accidents killed people [last year] and in the 1970s, 30 years ago, we had 22,000 killed.

“And I'm rather sure that in the next 10 years we will have maybe only 2000 and in 10 years after that maybe only 1000 killed.”