Results of a federal study give clear evidence of the safety benefits offered by Meritor WABCO’s OnGuard collision mitigation system and OnLane lane departure warning system, according to Mr. Matthew Stevenson, President and General Manager, Meritor WABCO.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s (NHTSA) Field Study of Heavy-Vehicle Crash Avoidance Systems found that trucks equipped with collision avoidance systems for a 12-month period experienced no rear-end crashes with vehicles traveling ahead. Overall systems worked as intended with no negative impact to safe driving behaviour, according to the study. Additionally, fleet safety managers reported that they would recommend collision avoidance technology as standard equipment.
“We were honoured to participate in this study and lend our voice to endorse these safety technologies. We have been very pleased with the overall performance of the system and return on investment that OnGuard has afforded us. We look forward to additional improvements from OnGuardACTIVE ” said Mr. Joseph Thornton, Vice President of Maintenance, PS Logistics.
Nearly 170 drivers from seven fleets across the country logged more than 3 million miles and 110,000 hours operating 150 trucks equipped with 2013 vintage collision mitigation and lane departure warning systems from Meritor WABCO and one other supplier.
“Fleet safety is our mission and our business. While fleets report up to an 87 percent reduction in rear-end crashes and about 89 percent reduction in rear-end crash costs with the previous OnGuard system, our newer OnGuardACTIVE will be a further improvement. We’ll take lessons learned from this study to strive for the prevention of 100 percent of rear-end collisions moving forward” Stevenson said.
Earlier this year, Meritor WABCO launched OnGuardACTIVE, which detects moving, stopped and stationary vehicles on the forward roadway and autonomously applies the brakes when appropriate. OnGuardACTIVE’s radar-only system also detects potential rear-end crash events in limited visibility. The NHTSA field study did not evaluate OnGuardACTIVE.
The lessons learned from the study as well as more than nine years of experience and 1,20,000 systems in operation with 267 fleets will help Meritor WABCO continuously improve the features and performance of its safety systems, Stevenson said.