Mercedes-Benz announces ‘Vision Zero’ project to achieve accident-free driving

By 2050, there will be no more accidents involving a Mercedes vehicle, said a senior executive of the German automobile giant.

Mercedes-Benz has announced an ambitious project called ‘Vision Zero’ under which the German automobile giant will attempt to achieve zero accidents by 2050. According to a report in HT Auto, the project is based on a research on road accidents that the luxury carmaker has been doing for more than 50 years, and which has been, in recent years, expanded to include countries like China and India.

Mercedes-Benz is working on a concept called 'Vision Zero' (Representative Image)

Mercedes-Benz ‘Vision Zero’ project

To achieve the said goal, Mercedes-Benz has set itself, smaller targets such as bringing down the number of deaths and injuries due to road accidents in the next 8 years by at least half of the corresponding figure in 2020, the report said.

Also, as part of the research, the Accident Research Unit (ARU) at Mercedes-Benz analysed and reconstructed more than 5,000 real-world accidents since the company was founded in 1969.

“We are pursuing our vision of accident-free driving. In other words, no more accidents involving a Mercedes vehicle. We are working towards this goal at full speed. Highly automated and autonomous driving will be a decisive contributor to the mission's success,” said Paul Dick, the Stuttgart-headquartered company's Head of Vehicle Safety.

‘Safety first’ at Mercedes-Benz

In 1997, the carmaker's A-Class (W 168 series) failed a moose test, under which the ability of a car to evade an obstacle that suddenly appeared before it, is tested. The failure prompted Mercedes-Benz to introduce the Electronic Stability Programme (ESP) in all its models.