Mercedes-benz to Host Auto Safety Conference

Car manufacturers have always been looking to raise the bar for automotive safety. Providing safe cars for their customers is one of the responsibilities being taken seriously by car manufacturers. Although Volvo is considered by many to be the industry leader in terms of safety, other car manufacturers such as Mercedes-Benz are also on the forefront of the auto safety features development.

The German luxury car manufacturer is scheduled to host the largest gathering in the auto industry concerning auto safety. The Technical Conference on the Enhanced Safety of Vehicles will be hosted by Mercedes-Benz and will be held in Stuttgart, Germany in the spring of 2009. The said gathering is considered to be the most important conference on automotive safety.

The gathering will be attended by auto engineers, representatives from official agencies and politicians concerned with traffic safety. The attendees of the conference will discuss the current technologies used by auto manufacturers to ensure that their vehicles will be safe for consumers. They will also be looking for improvements that can be made to make vehicles safer in the future. Politicians will also discuss legislations which will complement the development of auto safety features.

Mercedes-Benz is in the process of organizing the event. The conference will be accompanied by an extensive background program to let the attendees learn what safety features are now being widely used in the auto industry. The car manufacturer will be teaming up with Germany’s Federal Highway Research Institute.

“The purpose of this major conference is to underline the importance of Stuttgart and Sindelfingen as automotive industry locations with a rich tradition, where systematic car safety development commenced under Béla Barényi in 1939, and which have brought forth many trailblazing technologies for safer driving,” said Dr. Thomas Weber, a member of the DaimlerChrysler Board of Management for Research and Development.

The conference has been instrumental in the development of safety features for automotive application. This year, the conference was held in Lyon, France and was concluded just recently. The topic of the conference for this year is “Integrated Vehicle Safety”. This means that the attendees of the conference tackled passive safety systems. These safety features are designed to be activated during accidents. Mercedes-Benz has been a leader in the development of this kind of safety features.

At the 2009 conference, Mercedes-Benz will be highlighting their trailblazing efforts in the development of passive safety features. The 2009 conference will coincide with Mercedes-Benz’ 70th anniversary celebration of its safety department which is tasked with the development of advanced safety features for Mercedes-Benz vehicles. The safety department was started in August of 1939 under the management of Béla Barényi. It was Barényi who conceptualized the crumple zones which have been used in the design of Mercedes-Benz vehicles.

Today, Mercedes-Benz is using a variety of safety features for their vehicles which can work perfectly with aftermarket parts such as the Mercedes K&N air filter. Some of these safety features include the Electronic Stability Program (ESP) and the Brake Assist which have been developed by the car manufacturer in its in-house accident research labs. Other safety features developed by the safety department are airbags, safety belt tensioners, and windowbags or commonly known as side curtain airbags.

The conference that Mercedes-Benz is organizing is held every two years and it started when United States traffic authorities called for an event were auto safety features and their impacts on road safety can be discussed.