On the road to accident-free driving

Mercedes-Benz is the pioneer of automotive safety. No other car manufacturer carries out such intensive research in this field and has brought so many crucial innovations onto the market. Ever since the invention of the motor car in 1886, Mercedes-Benz has been instrumental in the development of active and passive safety, setting one new benchmark after another in the process.

Today, accident-free driving ranks as one of the most important objectives that the researchers and developers at Mercedes-Benz are working to fulfil. Many of the innovations first introduced by Mercedes-Benz have since become industry standards - from the rigid passenger compartment (patented in 1951, first implemented in series production in the 111-series "Fintail" models in 1959), to the ABS anti-lock braking system (introduced in 1978 in the 116-series S-Class) and the airbag (premiered in the 126-series S-Class from 1981), to the ESP(r) Electronic Stability Program (presented in 1995 in the S-Class Coupé from the 140 model series).

These days, such safety systems are standard fare for nearly all manufacturers. This means that, in a way, there is a bit of Mercedes-Benz in every modern-day motor car.

And the innovative solutions in every new model the brand brings out show how vehicle safety will continue to be a matter of the highest priority for Mercedes-Benz engineers in future too.

The overriding goal is to continually reduce the number of road traffic deaths and injuries and prevent accidents from happening in the first place. When Mercedes-Benz's systematic program of safety research first began, the focus was initially placed on passive safety, meaning protecting the vehicle occupants as best possible in the event of an accident.

Later, the safety experts at Mercedes-Benz started to devote their attention increasingly to active safety by developing innovations designed to mitigate the severity of collisions or prevent them from occurring at all - to the benefit of all involved.

Along the road to accident-free driving, Mercedes-Benz became the first car maker in the world to network active and passive safety features with one another. With the anticipatory occupant protection system PRE-SAFE(r), the Stuttgart brand opened up another new chapter in the evolution of safety technology.

These days, it is the phase prior to an accident especially which offers new safety-enhancing potential, as the more time there is between detection of an impending collision and the actual impact, the more the safety systems are able to increase the protection afforded to occupants. Not long after the invention of the motor car, Carl Benz and Gottlieb Daimler get to work on making the vehicles they developed ever safer.

The Mercedes 35 hp dating from 1901 continues to serve as an outstanding example of active safety today. Some of its design features can still be found in modern-day vehicles, such as the long wheelbase, the large track width and the low centre of gravity.

Another driving safety milestone is reached in 1931 with the 170 model, the first ever production passenger car to combine independent suspension at the front and rear with a hydraulic braking system.

And with the double-wishbone front suspension in the Mercedes-Benz 380 in 1933, a standard of wheel suspension technology is introduced that still holds good today, and has increased active safety considerably.

Mercedes-Benz engineers start to take a methodical and analytical approach to vehicle safety long before they have electronic tools to help them. In parallel to this, Mercedes-Benz presses ahead with its fundamental research in order to better understand the processes that occur in a few fractions of a second in an accident. In 1939, a test vehicle is created at Mercedes-Benz with a highly rigid floor assembly including sturdy side impact protection, as well as a three-part steering column. These design principles are incorporated into series production in 1953 for the new Mercedes-Benz 180 "Ponton".

In the late 1940s, Béla Barényi - an engineer employed at the then Mercedes-Benz AG - formulates the basic principles for the revolutionary concept of a body with crumple zones, i.e. deformable sections at the front and rear, which is then patented in 1952.

Barényi is the first to realise that the kinetic energy released in an impact must be dissipated by deformation to protect the occupants effectively. Consequently, he divides the vehicle body into three zones: soft front section, rigid passenger compartment, soft rear section.

Accident-free driving remains an ambitious goal for the future.

The quest for accident-free driving poses a multifaceted and, above all, ongoing challenge: the aim of the engineers will always be to make the next generation of vehicles safer than the last, while also reacting to the evolution of the complex machine that is the motor car and to changes on our roads.