The Golden Road Ahead

The Mercedes Benz E-Class is sleek, swift and safe – but it comes at a price.

- Derek Watts

In a decade or two – maybe three – we will look back at how we used to bullet towards each other in tin cans at a combined speed of two hundred kilometers per hour and more.

We can bemoan crime around Africa and the world, but the most dangerous thing we do (apart from cave diving) is quietly press the start button of our car.

Globally around 1.3 million people die in road accidents every year and well over 20 million are disabled.

And while the glorious new future of autonomous driving awaits, for now manufacturers make their vehicles as safe as they can and (at a price) install a range of amazing collision avoidance features that seems to grow by the month.

Volvo have set the bar incredibly high with their vision that by 2020 nobody should be seriously injured or killed in one of their new cars.

But it’s the Mercedes Benz E-Class saloon that makes the top three in the world of safety as rated by the European New Car Assessment Programme (Euro NCAP) after a series of test crashes.

What impressed the testers was the PRE-SAFE system which magically detects if an accident is imminent by the way the car is being driven. It automatically tightens the seatbelts, closes the windows and sunroof and even adjusts the seats to the optimum position.

Now PRE-SAFE even links with the new Mercedes “me connect” evolution. The new brand with the guiding principle of “the best for me” means you can interact with your car, the dealership, Mercedes Assistance… maybe even Mars in the five areas of mobility, connectivity, service, financing and inspiration.

There have already been cases where the emergency call system has been triggered automatically by PRE-SAFE after an accident and assistance dispatched within seconds.