Just a day after unveiling its innovative and controversial MyKey system, Ford has come back with another piece of new technology, this time safety related, that will start appearing on some 2009 models. It's called Collision Warning with Brake Support, and it uses the radar system that makes Adaptive Cruise Control possible to detect what's in front of the car. If the system senses contact with something might happen, most likely another car, it will at first sound an audible alarm and activate a warning light. At the same time it will "precharge" the brakes and activate a brake-assist function in case the driver needs to slam on the brakes. While Ford doesn't give the details about what's exactly happening, it sounds as if this radar system will monitor the distance between your Ford and what's in front of you, and if a collision is deemed imminent will effectively get the brakes ready for a panic stop. We're told the technology will begin on appearing on select Ford and Lincoln models for 2009, along with other radar-based technologies like the aforementioned Adaptive Cruise Control that debuted on the 2009 Lincoln MKS and BLIS, a blind spot warning system.
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We've all done it; you're halfway through a lane change and suddenly a horn sounds and snaps you to reality. Whether you failed to check your blind spot adequately, or just plain oblivious, Ford's introducing a two features to help you out. The Blind Spot Mirror and Cross Traffic Alert with Blind Spot Monitoring System will arrive in 2009, and one offers a low-tech solution, while the other appears to be a Volvo feature trickling down.
Elegantly simple, the Blind Spot Mirror cleverly integrates a convex mirror into the regular mirror glass, much like the generations-old side-reducing mirrors available in other markets with a concave area to aid in viewing blind spots. The Cross-Traffic alert system uses radar to monitor traffic perpendicular to the back end when reversing. During forward travel, the radar system is used to detect and warn of vehicles traveling in your blind spot. The radar tricks sound to us like Ford leveraging Volvo's BLIS system, that monitors blind spots and lights a pilot LED when there's a vehicle there, and we worry that it will make drivers even less attentive, but then, we realize nobody is paying attention now, so if this rig raises awareness, road safety should improve. Ford's planning on bundling these new safety features along with reverse sensing and rearview cameras to create a more comprehensive portfolio of electronic safety aids in response to customers indicating a desire for better mirrors and safety systems.
