Ten Safety Features Your New Car Needs to Have

Despite the fact that cars have generally gotten lighter over the last fifty years and are therefore more likely to fold like a cheap suit in a collision or rollover if tapped the wrong way or you take a turn to fast, the safety features being introduced with the assistance of technology is making up for it. Driving an automobile becomes safer every year with new inventions that are both aesthetic and functional, sometimes even overriding the foolish sense of the humans that drive them in order to keep you safe. If you're shopping for a new vehicle and are in the market for something higher-end, here are 10 of the newest safety features out on the market that you want to try to get if you can. Note that different automakers have different names for some of these, but the end actions and results of the technology are all the same.

1. Intelligent Cruise Control - Cruise control has been around for a long time. It's simple technology that allows your car to maintain a consistent speed wherever you set it. Intelligent cruise control uses advanced sensing and radar technology to "read" the area around your car or truck and it will slow your vehicle down if the car ahead of you slows down, or even gently apply brakes if another driver cuts in front of you. Once the path is clear again, the system will return you to the speed you originally set. Hands-free Jetson's-style driving can't be too far off, can it?
2. Lane Drift Warning - The most common type of automobile accident comes from the blind spot usually present to the left or right of a car that makes some drivers believe it safe to change lanes. This new technology uses the same type of radar technology to warn the driver - via shaking steering wheel or flashing red light in the mirror - if you engage your turn signal and there is an object next to the car. This technology can also detect if your automobile seems to be "drifting" from one lane to the next without engaging the turn signal and sound an audible alarm or shake the steering wheel. In the very near future this safety feature will be coupled with existing technology that can read the posture and or face of a person to tell if the eyes are sliding closed and the head is nodding.
3. Tire Pressure Monitoring - The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has already decreed that all new automobiles made after 2008 must have these sensors that will tell if a tire is over or under-inflated. Not only is driving on tires that are not inflated properly a waste of gas, but it can also be very dangerous.
4. Rear View Cameras - These devices use a small camera mounted on or in the rear bumper of the vehicle and connected to a small monitor in the dashboard. When the car's transmission is placed into reverse, the camera activates and gives the driver a view of the rear of the vehicle. Guaranteed to save the lives of many young children.
5. Blind Spot Detection - This is similar to the lane drift warning technology but can also be used to detect blind spots all around the car and vehicles that are coming up from your rear side too quickly for you to make a safe lane change.
6. Adaptive Headlights - Adaptive headlights can do many things that ordinary headlights cannot, like turn to illuminate areas around a curve you are navigating, change the shape and brightness of their beam depending on driving and ambient lighting conditions.
7. Intelligent Airbag Sensors - Not all humans are built alike so it is a natural wonder that all airbags deploy with the same force to stop someone from flying through the windshield. Airbags going off with too much pressure for too small a person have been known to seriously injure. Intelligent airbag sensors will detect if there is someone sitting in the passenger seat of a vehicle, gauges their weight and adjust the force with which an airbag will deploy accordingly.
8. Emergency Response Systems - Short of calling the police for you (which systems powered by GM's OnStar system will actually do), there are other intelligent things that autos are being equipped to do after an accident. Shutting off the gas, disconnecting the battery from the alternator, turning on interior lights and unlocking car doors are among them.
9. Rollover Prevention - Certain automobiles are being designed with features that detect a rollover in progress and drop safety bars in place along with intelligence in the vehicles that act to prevent a rollover if the car or truck is taking a turn too quickly.
10. Night Vision Assistance - Vehicles equipped with this handy little feature will have displays in the dash that show an infrared view of the road up ahead, illuminating people or animals that may be difficult to see what the naked eye.