Second-Generation Toyota Safety Sense Collision-Avoidance Package Features Expanded Capabilities

Toyota Motor North America announced that the second generation of its Toyota Safety Sense package will begin rolling out as standard equipment on certain Toyota vehicles beginning in mid 2018.

The second generation of Toyota Safety Sense has been expanded to help improve driver situational awareness while providing additional protections for a pedestrian or bicyclist in front of the vehicle, the automaker said.

The initial version of Toyota Safety Sense, along with Lexus Safety System+, brought Toyota’s pre-collision system with automatic emergency braking, lane-departure alert and other advanced safety systems to more than 5 million Toyota and Lexus vehicles sold in North America, Japan and Europe.

By the end of 2017, Toyota Safety Sense and Lexus Safety System+ will be standard on almost every model in the Toyota and Lexus lineups, according to the automaker.

The upgraded system is designed to support driver awareness, decision-making and vehicle operation over a wide range of speeds under certain conditions, Toyota said. Packaged into an integrated system, it is designed to address three key areas of accident protection: preventing or mitigating frontal collisions; keeping drivers within their lanes; and enhancing road safety during nighttime driving.

New or updated technologies will include:

• Pre-collision system (updated) with enhanced deceleration capabilities and the ability to help detect a collision with a pedestrian in front of the vehicle during the day and at night, and bicyclist in front of the vehicle during the day
• Lane-departure alert (updated) enhanced with “road-edge detection” to increase the vehicle’s ability to help drivers stay in their lane
• Road sign assist (new), which is designed to display road sign information in an easy-to-understand format on the dashboard meter display and head-up display if equipped. The vehicle’s onboard camera can detect and recognize certain common road signs in the United States, Japan and Europe (road sign type varies by market).
• Lane-tracing assist (new), which provides steering support to help the driver keep the vehicle centered in its lane when dynamic radar cruise control is in operation
• Full-speed range dynamic radar cruise control (updated) with enhanced forward recognition and acceleration/deceleration performance across a wide range of speeds (full-speed range dynamic radar cruise control not available on vehicles equipped with manual transmissions)

“Toyota plans to continue expanding the capabilities of Toyota Safety Sense with a broader range of automated safety systems and technology as research and development progresses,” the automaker said in a news release. “This proven approach to technology development helps speed the introduction of advanced systems designed to help improve safety, reduce accidents and ease traffic congestion.”