New Volvo Safety Feature Steers Clear of Cyclists

• By LIZ OPSITNIK

If you live in a major city, you know that trying to avoid hitting pedestrians and bicyclists is tricky because in crowded city streets, they can be difficult to see, especially for distracted drivers, and will sometimes step or veer out in front of your car.


Volvo will soon offer a new safety feature that builds on its current Pedestrian Detection system. Volvo announced its new Pedestrian and Cyclist Detection system at the Geneva Motor Show, and said in astatement it will be able to detect cyclists “swerving out in front of the car” and automatically apply the brakes to avoid hitting the cyclist. “The advanced sensor system scans the area ahead. If a cyclist heading in the same direction as the car suddenly swerves out in front of the car as it approaches from behind and a collision is imminent, there is an instant warning and full braking power is applied.”
CNBC’s Phil LeBeau says there are more people using bicycles for transportation and an increasing amount of bad blood between motorists and bicyclists. “I've seen people acting like morons when driving by cyclists and I've seen cyclists behaving like idiots when it comes to sharing the road,” LeBeau says.

Volvo’s new Cyclist Detection system will join the automaker's lineup of innovative safety features. “Like Volvo's groundbreaking Pedestrian Detection system that came online in 2010 (as well as the automaker's current Adaptive Cruise Control and Collision Avoidance systems), this latest variation consists of a grille-mounted radar unit, a forward-facing high-resolution camera positioned ahead of the inside rearview mirror and a central controller that uses a constant data stream from both to monitor and evaluate the surrounding traffic,” Kelley Blue Bookreports.
The Cyclist Detection system will initially be available in European Volvo models in the next few months, “with availability in the U.S. likely to follow,” Forbes reports.
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