Mercedes-Benz: More than 20,000 fewer serious accidents per year with ESP

Press Release

Statistics show that Mercedes innovations help reduce the number of accidents

The Electronic Stability Program is the result of safety developments at Mercedes-Benz that are based on analyses of real situations and the knowledge gained from accident research. Other technological milestones that benefit the occupants of all passenger cars, such as the crumple zone, airbags, seat belt tensioners, offset layouts, and side and window bags, are also based on this development principle.

As such, Mercedes-Benz has been a trendsetter in passenger car safety for exactly 65 years. The brand has also made a major contribution to the continual reduction of the number of injured vehicle occupants that has been registered in Germany, with a decrease of more than 41 percent recorded in the period between 1993 and 2003 alone. The number of drivers and vehicle passengers killed in traffic accidents fell by more than 38 percent to a record low during the same period.

Having developed a series of pioneering inventions that have been proven to enhance occupant safety, Mercedes-Benz has spent the last few years focusing on accident prevention. Technological milestones such as ESP®, the ABS anti-lock braking system (ABS), the ASR acceleration skid control system, Brake Assist (BAS) and Active Body Control (ABC) have made Mercedes a pioneer and trendsetter in the field of accident prevention as well. The ultimate goal of Mercedes engineers is the “vision of accident-free driving."

As was the case with airbags, seatbelt tensioners, ABS and ESP®, the development of future Mercedes safety systems will also be primarily based on analyses of actual accidents and extensive practical tests.

Safety system development: Contradictory goals as a result of laboratory tests and data from actual accidents

Safety-system development at Mercedes-Benz thus differs from other goals that focus mainly on the demands of laboratory tests such as the Euro NCAP procedures, rather than the knowledge gained from research into actual accidents. "Using standard crash tests like the Euro NCAP procedures as the sole testing and assessment criteria for judging safety in new automobiles is not the right path to follow, as it does not allow us to take into account the way accidents actually occur," says Weber.

Mercedes considers the "European New Car Assessment Program," which awards the well-known safety stars as a certificate, to be quite helpful in terms of informing car buyers about occupant protection in new models. However, the crash tests stipulated by NCAP cover only approximately one-third of the actual circumstances surrounding accidents. Moreover, this proportion falls significantly when one additionally takes into consideration the exact severity of various accidents. For this reason, Mercedes believes that NCAP harbours a risk in that vehicles could be designed primarily in a manner that ensures they fulfil the test requirements, and might therefore not offer sufficient occupant protection in many types of accidents.

Mercedes experts point to head-on collisions as an example, whereby it is often the case that vehicles of differing sizes and weights crash into one another. In such situations, an extremely rigid front structure does not always offer the best occupant protection, despite the fact that it leads to the best results in the Euro NCAP head-on collision test.

"Many safety innovations over the last few years have not had any influence on the results of the Euro NCAP tests, and their protective functions have not been awarded with safety stars," says Weber. “In practice, however, these systems are important in ensuring the best possible protection for vehicle occupants in all types of accidents."