The three-point seatbelt is acknowledged as one of the most important car safety innovations ever developed. Photo: Volvo

In the years since Swedish inventor Nils Bohlin came up with the three-point seatbelt and Volvo made it freely available for other manufacturers, the device has saved a life every six minutes around the world. More than 90 percent of Swedes use seatbelts — even in the back-seat.

Besides in-car innovations, other actions and policies have contributed to Sweden’s roads being so safe. The permitted blood alcohol concentration limit for driving in Sweden is 0.02 — the equivalent of less than one can of beer — which is about a quarter of that in the United States and among the strictest in the world. Recent research from Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm shows that even a single glass of alcohol increases the risk of injury in a car crash.

Drink detector

Almost a third of the annual 1.4 million traffic fatalities worldwide are alcohol-related. Led by Swedish Autoliv, one of the world’s leading automotive safety companies, a project was set up to develop the next generation of alcolocks, which prevent a person who has been drinking from starting up a car engine and driving under the influence.

Alcolocks have already been fitted to cars belonging to convicted drink-drivers in Sweden and the United States, but the technology is costly and a new mouthpiece is needed each time. Photo: Karin Paulsson

The project, KAIA (an acronym for “driver- and vehicle-compatible alcohol sensor with embedded absolute measurement” in Swedish), aims to solve these issues. It is part of the Swedish Road Administration-financed Intelligent Vehicle Safety Systems program.

The first alcolock, available from 2012, will be handheld. The second generation will be integrated into the steering wheel, with only a small hole visible. The aim is to make it cheap enough to be widely spread. Autoliv’s project leader Håkan Pettersson hopes that one day, a quick puff of breath toward the steering wheel will be as natural as turning the key in the ignition.

All-seeing eye

To also increase safety for pedestrians, Swedish researchers are using military technology to develop systems that track body heat. Henrik Kaar of Autoliv explains. “Pedestrians are four times as likely to be hit by a car at night as during the day, and that is what our night vision system tries to prevent.”

An infrared sensor mounted on the front of the car scans the scene ahead while a small computer analyses the image. “Based on the signal, the computer can recognize people walking in front of the vehicle. If it does, it will warn the driver,” Karr says.

While the in-car display is also capable of picking up the heat from larger animals such as moose or wild boar, it is not yet able to flash up the warning.

“We have to train the system to recognize them,” he says. “It knows how to recognize people, but animals do not move in the same way as humans, and it is difficult to get data to train system on. We have to attack that problem in a different way and that is what we are doing now.”

Soon enough moose and wild boar will also be safer on the roads. Photo: Bernhard Sturm / Autoliv

Talking cars

In Göteborg, testing of another new technology is under way. It will allow drivers to avoid accidents by making cars “talk” to each other. The vehicles can warn each other of hazards like pile-ups on foggy freeways and bad road conditions. And in the event that their airbags are deployed, they will send out a warning to other vehicles.

Peter Follin, test manager at Test Site Sweden, gives an example of how this would work. “If you are driving on the highway in the fog and there is an accident in front of you, you normally don’t have any time to act and it ends up with a serious crash involving many vehicles. But with radio transmission between vehicles you can get early warning that something has happened ahead.

“The system knows there is an accident, knows its exact position and also which direction the car was driving.”

This communication could happen via a cell phone network, and the system itself could be as simple as a small chip in your GPS device. “This technology will give drivers a much safer vehicle without being a major investment,” Follin says.

Bright ideas

Over the years Swedes and Swedish companies have been behind a long list of other safety innovations, including the laminated windshield, side airbags and rear-facing child seats. Also, driving with headlights on around the clock to increase a car’s visibility to other motorists has been compulsory in Sweden since 1977.

Against the background of all these initiatives and technologies, Sweden has set itself the ambitious target of eliminating all road traffic fatalities by 2020 — the so-called Vision Zero, which has attracted huge interest abroad.

While there has been some debate about whether Swedish society has become too safety-minded and too averse to risk, you can’t argue with its single-minded efforts to make world’s roads safer.

David Wiles

David Wiles is the editor of Sweden Today magazine. He is happy to drive a Swedish-made car bristling with Swedish-engineered safety systems. A device to help him keep his distance from the car in front would be appreciated by his wife.

The author alone is responsible for the opinions expressed in this article.

Classification: A293EN