World’s safest truck now in Phl

PROVING its worth in more than 14,000 trucks and 3 billion accumulated kilometers, MercedesBenz, under its Philippine general distributor, Auto Nation Group (ANG), launches the 2018 Actros heavy-duty truck. Touted as the “world’s safest truck”, the Actros now comes with the secondgeneration of Active Brake Assist or ABA2 which can help prevent rear-end collisions.

“We are proud to demonstrate the accuracy and efficiency of the second generation of Active Brake Assist and how it can further help prevent accidents and collisions. We at Auto Nation Group would like to strengthen the presence of the safest truck in the world, the MercedesBenz Actros, in our country to make our roads even safer,” said Don Ramos, assistant vice president for commercial vehicles of ANG.

“The Actros is by itself a safe and modern truck. With the second generation of Active Brake Assist, truck drivers, passengers, and other motorists on the road are assured of safer roads because of this riskmitigating technology. MercedesBenz puts a premium on safety, and you can expect that we will continue to find ways to ensure our vehicles are always safe and reliable,” added Ramos.

This multi-award-winning safety system now has even greater capability: whereas the first-generation system applied the brakes automatically if it detected a risk of a head-to-tail collision with a slow-moving obstacle in front of the vehicle, Active Brake Assist 2 is also activated if a stationary obstacle is detected.

The radar used by the Active Brake Assist 2 system scans an area of 1-200 meters in the lane ahead of the truck whilst continuously determining the distance to a vehicle in front or a stationary obstacle as well as the difference in speed between the two vehicles. If, based on the current driving style, an accident is unavoidable, the driver initially receives visual warnings in the form of a red triangle which lights up and an audible alarm. If the situation gets any worse, the system responds by applying the brakes automatically.

The warning concept is designed to allow drivers to diffuse critical situations themselves; that’s because braking initiated by Active Brake Assist 2 with 50 percent of the maximum braking power gives drivers the time that is needed to avoid an accident themselves.

Active Brake Assist 2 offers decisive advantages over other systems currently under development. The tried-and-tested radar technology operates robustly under all weather and light conditions, for instance. What’s more, Active Brake Assist is effective across a truck’s entire speed range: from 0 km/h or slow driving at brisk walking pace to motorway speeds of up to 89 km/h (when the speed limiter is activated).

Although Active Brake Assist 2 cannot always prevent accidents, the automatic application of the brakes does reduce the collision speed and, therefore, mitigates the consequences of accidents substantially.

Anti-lock braking system, acceleration skid control, disc brakes all round, electronically controlled braking system, high-pressure braking system, Brake Assist, Lane Assistant, roll control, proximity control: the list of safety technologies and systems that have celebrated their world premiere in Mercedes Benz trucks is a long one. However, the revolutionary Active Brake Assist system, which was introduced for the Mercedes-Benz Actros heavyduty truck in 2006, is a highlight.

Many truck drivers have reported situations in which the safety system has prevented accidents. The experts are agreed: Active Brake Assist has saved lives, not only those of Actros drivers and occupants but also those of the people in the vehicles in front. Many insurance companies are also convinced that this system is good for their customers and, therefore, ultimately for themselves, prompting them to offer discounts on premiums for commercial vehicles equipped with this technology.

The 2018 Actros with ABA2 is now available for bookings at all MercedesBenz dealerships nationwide.