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On the road, the cyclist is a vulnerable species who can only rely on his vigilance and his reflexes. He can hardly do anything against the unexpected opening of a door. Lexus may have found the parade with its Safe Exit Assist.
There are more and more cyclists in the city and their circulation must be done in a safe compromise. If vigilance and anticipation are the watchwords of two-wheelers, this is not always enough when faced with the unexpected.
One of these unforeseen events is the unexpected opening of a door. This represents 2.9% of the causes of falls for a cyclist. This is less than a collision with a pedestrian (3%), but the consequences can be disastrous.
Of course, to overcome this problem, prevention campaigns are regularly broadcast. Campaigns in which the driver is encouraged to look in his exterior mirror or to open his door with his right arm, forcing him to turn his head to see if a cyclist is approaching.
Electronics to the rescue of the heads in the air
To compensate for possible driver distraction, Lexus offers a new driving aid called Safe Exit Assist. This 100% electronic aid combines the blind spot monitoring sensors located at the rear of the vehicle with the “the new e-latch electronic door opening system“. Concretely, when the system detects the presence of a cyclist or other user, a visual alarm is displayed in the exterior mirrors and on the instrument cluster and blocks the electronic opening of the doors.
The Safe Exit Assist is already operational on the new NX SUV and will be integrated on the next RZ, a 100% electric SUV, and on the fifth generation of the RX.
Lexus, which aims “the ultimate goal of zero accidents, zero injuries and zero fatalities on the road“, already has a “wide range of safety devices“. Thus, the Safety System + is able to detect – during the day – a risk of collision with a cyclist arriving in front. Finally, another device makes it possible to warn the driver “if a cyclist is in the path of the car when it turns left or right at a junction“.
Thanks to a mobile application and via the cloud, the cyclist is immediately warned of an impending collision. © Volvo Cars
Remember that in 2015, Volvo Car received the connected object prize for its cycling helmet solution connected to the vehicle at the first Connected Automotive Conference organized in Paris by the Journal de l’Automobile.
In the field, when a collision was imminent, the two users, the driver and the cyclist, were warned. For the driver, the alert was displayed via the head-up system (HUD) while the cyclist was warned thanks to an LED on his helmet, this solution also working when “the cyclist is in a blind spot, around a bend or behind another vehicle, or is barely visible at night“.
According to a report by the National Interministerial Road Safety Observatory, 226 cyclists died in 2021, 39 more than in 2019 and 48 more than in 2020.