Technology evolves at such a rapid rate; you can be sure that any gadgets you use today will become obsolete in the near future! The same thing applies to technology used in the automotive industry too.

For example, I am old enough to remember when the majority of cars had single locks on each door, and then the use of central locking in cars became widespread. Nowadays, remote central locking is standard in cars, with keyless entry the norm!

With the news that technology companies such as Google are developing their own autonomous cars, it got me thinking about what safety features might cars of the future have. Here is my take on the safety features that cars will probably have as standard in ten years!

Driver-assisted parallel parking

One of the things that many drivers struggle with, myself included, is parallel parking. A few vehicle manufacturers have already created driver-assisted parallel parking systems in some models produced today, but I imagine this will become a standard features of all cars by 2024.

The way that these systems work is fairly straightforward. You simply activate a button on your dashboard when you want the car to locate a suitable parking space. When you drive past one, at a slow speed, of course, it will prompt you to indicate your intention, stop, and select reverse gear.

You then let go of the steering wheel and work the brake, accelerator and clutch pedals as directed, whilst it steers you into your desired parking space.

You might then have to select first gear or “Drive”, depending on what transmission your car has, and it will further guide you so that you are parked centrally between the cars in front of you and behind you!

Semi-autonomous braking

Again, another technology featured in a few cars today but will doubtless become standard in 10 years time is semi-autonomous braking.

Phil from Sunny Hill Motors was keen to explain to me how these systems work. In a nutshell, hazard perception isn’t the strongest point of many drivers on today’s roads. Some folks react too slowly when they see a car suddenly pulling out in front of them, or a pedestrian running across their path.

The idea behind semi-autonomous braking is to let the car decide when it needs to take over and brake, rather than solely relying on your judgement and reaction times to stop in emergency situations.

Various computer-controlled cameras and infrared sensors constantly map the road ahead by some distance, and can instantly calculate whether it needs to take over on your behalf and brake to avoid hitting a person or vehicle in front of you.

Night vision

The military and other tactical security groups use night vision to light up the environment around them so that they can see in the dark.

Although car lighting technology has significantly improved over the years, and we now don’t have to rely on headlights that are as powerful as a couple of candles to light up the road, they aren’t effective in 100% of situations, especially where hazard perception is concerned.

I strongly believe that night vision technology will be installed in all cars of the future, and will work together with other systems such as semi-autonomous braking.