[center]The History of Car Safety
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Proponents of automotive safety have had to fight an uphill battle over much of the past century. But now the auto industry has responded to regulatory pressure and growing consumer demand with a range of safety innovations.

The United States has taken a long, winding road to greater vehicle safety, and there were more than a few accidents and detours along the way.

The first milestone came on Sept. 14, 1899. On that day, Henry Bliss, a 68-year-old real estate agent, died from his injuries after an electrically powered taxi ran into him in New York's Central Park. He became the nation's first car accident fatality.

Within a decade, traffic deaths were occurring 25 times more frequently than today, based on fatalities per mile traveled. It wasn't long before inventor John O'Leary developed a solution typical of that ingenious era: the O'Leary Fender.



Models Offering Crash Avoidance Systems

2008 Audi A8
Lane Assist: With this option, the steering wheel vibrates if the cars veers from the lane in which it is traveling, unless the driver signals in advance.

2008 Audi Q7
Side Assist: Available for the first time on the Audi Q7. It is radar-based system that watches blind spots and alerts the driver to any vehicle there. The Audi A8 also has side assist as an option.

2008 BMW 5 & 6 Series
Stop and Go: Part of its active cruise control option, BMW offers a Stop and Go function that reduces the risk of rear-end collisions in slow-going, heavy traffic. It uses radar sensors to monitor vehicles ahead, braking the vehicle while slowing or even stopping the engine.

2008 Mercedes-Benz CL-Class and S-Class
Brake Assist Plus: This system, standard on the CL-Class and S-Class, provides automatic braking before an impending crash. These models also have Distronic Plus (a form of adaptive cruise control) that uses radar to help the driver maintain a safe following distance.

Pre-Collision System: An option on the LS and other models, this system prepares the brake assist function and tightens the front seatbelts to reduce injury to the driver and front passenger if a crash seems unavoidable. [/align]
[b]According to his ad in an upstate New York newspaper, the fender made "serious injury by being hit with an automobile practically impossible." It resembled a wire-mesh cowcatcher that "scooped the person up out of harm's way."

History doesn't record how many devices O'Leary sold. But judging from how safety features fared during the industry's early years, it probably wasn't many. And that may have been a good thing, considering the surviving descriptions of his invention.

Over the years, even sound approaches to safety have had to battle consumer apathy and hard-nosed, bottom-line attitudes in the auto industry.

As pressure for greater safety began to build after World War II, some industry figures denied that they needed to make vehicles safer. Instead, it was drivers who had to improve. The innovations that actually improved safety were mostly touted as advances in handling, comfort, styling or performance.

In 1946, one "expert" wrote that the latest models "are as safe as science can make them." Not surprisingly, physicians became advocates for safety improvements, evidently tiring of the carnage they were seeing in their hospitals.

The Journal of the American Medical Association charged in 1955 that vehicle interiors "are so poorly constructed from a safety standpoint that that it is surprising that anyone escapes from an automobile accident without serious injury."

At least some in the industry were listening. In early 1950s, the auto companies, after an inexplica