VALIDATING ADVANCED
SAFETY FEATURES
IN GM VEHICLES

GM is hard at work making advanced safety features, such as Forward Collision Alert and Automatic Emergency Braking, standard in many of our new vehicles. So it’s worth asking the question: are these features working the way we intend by preventing specific types of collisions? Results of a study that GM recently conducted with the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute suggest that the answer is a resounding “yes.”

“ We’re well on our way to our zero crashes vision with technology we have out in the field today.”

Raymond Kiefer
GM Active Safety Technical Fellow

UMTRI examined more than 3.7 million vehicles across 20 different 2013–2017 GM models. They used police report data from 10 state crash databases to evaluate the effectiveness of 15 active safety and advanced headlighting systems. After comparing the crash instances involving vehicles with and without active safety features, researchers found that many of GM’s active safety features are statistically significant in reducing the number of crashes on the road.

As UMTRI Research Associate Professor Carol Flannagan explains, “The more automated a vehicle’s system, the better it worked. We see an improvement in effectiveness as you go down towards greater automation.”

“This study is groundbreaking in terms of the range of vehicles and safety features examined,” says Raymond Kiefer, GM Active Safety Technical Fellow. “The results show that the GM safety systems evaluated are addressing a wide range of common crashes that cause a staggering amount of injuries, property damage and cost to our customers and society. We’re well on our way to our zero crashes vision with technology we have out in the field today.”