Electronic Stability Programme
As skidding is one of the main contributors to traffic accidents involving serious injury or death, stability control has been hailed by automakers, suppliers and road safety advocates as the most promising eSafety technology on the market. The anti-rollover technology, Electronic Stability Control (ESC) senses when the driver looses control and automatically applies breaking pressure to individual wheels to help stabilise the vehicle and avoid skidding.
ESC is especially effective in helping to prevent crashes that involve a vehicle skidding or overturning, with the potential to reduce serious accidents like this by up to 59%. UK Department for Transport research, published in July this year has found that vehicles equipped with ESC are 25% less likely to be involved in a fatal accident than those without it. If every vehicle on UK roads were fitted with ESC, this would equate to approximately 380 fewer fatal collisions each year. As well as this, it concluded that ESC could offer additional benefits in adverse road conditions such as wet or snowy weather.
With estimates showing that ESC could reduce the risk of all accidents by 20%, it has been dubbed the greatest road safety innovation since the safety belt.
The innovation, now being increasingly fitted to a wide range of vehicles first came to the market in Mercedes vehicles and was designed and developed by Bosch as its Electronic Stability Programme ESP. http://www.chooseesc.eu