New safety kit from Volvo
Technology instead of personal responsibility?
BLIS with Volvo
The new safety system -- BLIS (Blind Spot Information System) -- uses a digital camera system set into both door mirrors. It monitors the area alongside the car for cars or motorbikes, then alerts the driver via an orange light housed in the car's A-pillar by the door mirror. BLIS also works after dark, when it will react to the headlamps of any surrounding vehicles.
Volvo's rationale is that the additional visual information BLIS relays to the driver before changing lanes or overtaking will prove useful.
The company's keen, quite rightly, to make the point that technology cannot relieve drivers of their obligations to make visual checks before manoeuvring, but sees its systems as "an added level of protection against vehicles hovering in the periphery of the driver’s field of vision."
You can turn it off if you want, and Volvo reckoned that it can distinguish between mobile and immobile objects such as parked cars, road barriers, lampposts and other static objects. It should respond only to potentially hazardous moving obstacles, said the company.
But what are the odds that most drivers of BLIS-fitted cars won't bother looking behind them before manoeuvring? That's yet another slice of responsibility for your actions gone...
jazzyjeff said:
Well judging by my experience of Volvo drivers this WILL make a difference to their accident rate as none of them look in their mirrors anyway!! ;-)
Tut, tut, tut, dont tar us all with the same brush, like yourself, I consider myself the best driver on the road. Been driving over 30 years, and just coz I've had a Volvo for just over a year, doesnt alter my driving awareness, or skills.....
Worse I find on the roads these days are lorrys by far...
rodbloke said:
Nice idea...but a simple over the shoulder check? Its not tricky....
I agree with this, but whilst do an advanced driving test, I was critised for looking over my shoulder saying I was taking my eyes off the road ahead.
It is true, but having done it on a bike for long enough without death, I had to disagree!
victormeldrew said:
In my experience most Volvo drivers look, know you're there, but pull out anyway. It isn't going to hurt them after all. This will make no difference whatsoever, just something else for them to pay no attention to.
Were not all 75,drive in the middle lane and wear beige cardigans(mine is in the wardrobe)....I bought my V70 as a compromise.....buy a car, or a boat....so I bought the car for the unbelievable pitching and rolling that mimics a boat in a storm....and I can drive on the roads too.....job done !
vipers said:
[quote=jazzyjeff]Well judging by my experience of Volvo drivers this WILL make a difference to their accident rate as none of them look in their mirrors anyway!! ;-)
Tut, tut, tut, dont tar us all with the same brush, like yourself, I consider myself the best driver on the road. Been driving over 30 years, and just coz I've had a Volvo for just over a year, doesnt alter my driving awareness, or skills.....
quote]
from a fellow Volvo & TVR driver. No sweeping generalisations please! 
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