Skip to main content

Mercedes auto-braking gets first class rating

Thatcham, Britain’s leading insurance-related automotive research centre, has given top marks to the self-braking system on Mercedes latest C-Class car saying it will provide major benefits to road safety and motorists’ insurance premiums. During testing for the Euro NCAP rating, the braking system on the latest avoided collisions at speeds of up to 40km/h (25mph) by detecting an object in its path and bringing the vehicle to a halt without any driver input. To date many autonomous emergency braking (AEB)
September 25, 2014 Read time: 2 mins
Thatcham, Britain’s leading insurance-related automotive research centre, has given top marks to the self-braking system on 1685 Mercedes latest C-Class car saying it will provide major benefits to road safety and motorists’ insurance premiums. During testing for the 6437 Euro NCAP rating, the braking system on the latest model avoided collisions at speeds of up to 40km/h (25mph) by detecting an object in its path and bringing the vehicle to a halt without any driver input.

To date many autonomous emergency braking (AEB) systems have only been able to avoid collisions at around half the speed achieved by the new Mercedes technology. Thatcham says 17 vehicle manufacturers offer AEB and in the UK 7% of new cars now on sale have AEB as standard, while 17% have it as an option.

Thatcham is backing insurance industry calls for a government-funded incentive for buyers to select new vehicles with AEB.

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • UK to lead the way in testing driverless cars
    July 20, 2015
    The UK government has launched a US$30 million competitive fund for collaborative research and development into driverless vehicles, along with a code of practice for testing. The measures, announced by Business Secretary Sajid Javid and Transport Minister Andrew Jones, will put the UK at the forefront of the intelligent mobility market, expected to be worth US£1.4 trillion by 2025. The government wants bidders to put forward proposals in areas such as safety, reliability, how vehicles can communicat
  • Bit by bit insurers agree data protocol
    November 7, 2013
    Telematics technology may be a game changer for the automobile insurance industry but it comes with some caveats as Colin Sowman discovers. James Bielak, (P&C) program manager at the US office of ACORD (the Association for Cooperative Operations Research and Development), has an unenviable job: to devise a standard form of communicating vehicle data between telematics providers and insurance companies. To that end he has gathered together a group composed of insurers, telematics providers and other intere
  • Extra enforcement key to cutting road casualties in The Netherlands
    November 27, 2013
    While The Netherlands already has some of the safest roads in the world it has ambitious plans to make them safer still, as Jon Masters discovers. In virtually all periodical studies and comparisons of countries’ road safety performance, the Netherlands is consistently in the top three and often leads the world, depending on how casualty figures are compared. According to the International Traffic Safety Data & Analysis Group (IRTAD) of the International Transport Forum, road deaths per capita have falle
  • Is driver information heading for multi-channel mayhem
    October 22, 2013
    Colin Sowman talks to TRL’s research director Dr Alan Stevens about the future for cash-strapped road authorities’ driver information systems.