Volvo walks the walk on vehicle safety

As part of its Vision 2020 policy which aims for zero deaths in any Volvo from 2020 onwards, the company has decided to fit all of its new models henceforth with a 180km/h speed limiter. This begins with the updated V90 and S90 models.

As justification, Volvo claims that excessive speed is a primary factor involved in vehicle-related injuries and fatalities.

Of the move, Håkan Samuelsson, president and chief executive of Volvo Cars, said “While a speed limitation is not a cure-all, it’s worth doing if we can save even one life”.

The NHTSA found that one in four of all traffic fatalities in the US in 2017 was caused by speeding, and that concurs with Volvo’s research.

Samuelsson said we need to discuss aspects like speeding, intoxication and distraction, and someone needs to “take leadership in the discussion and be a pioneer.”

On distracted driving Volvo says: “Drivers distracted by their mobile phones or otherwise not fully engaged in driving are another major cause of traffic fatalities. In many ways, they are equally as dangerous as drunk drivers.”

The gradual move to touch screen control of minor functions produces greater distraction. That’s part of the reason that AI-led voice activation of car functions has become more prevalent, particularly as in-car connectivity grows in popularity.

The governing of car speed isn’t ground breaking per se. The three German luxury car makers have limited their cars’ top speeds to 250km/h since the 1980s. Moreover, the Japanese government instituted a 180km/h speed cap in 1988.

The next step is GPS-based speed control which might be used automatically, for example, to limit vehicle speeds around schools and hospitals in the future. The European Transport Safety Council is all for widespread implementation of ‘Intelligent Speed Assistance’.