EASY AS ESC: ESC brakes each of the four wheels individually to help control a slide or skid.
NRMA has long been involved in ANCAP, which produces safety ratings for new cars, and the Used Car Safety Ratings, which does the same for used cars.
While these ratings measure how well vehicles protect occupants in serious collisions, the programs have not paid much attention to crash avoidance technology, although this is changing. The driver-assist technologies now appearing in new vehicles are being introduced very quickly and are swelling the world’s annals of unrecognizable acronyms.
To help you understand what the acronyms mean and the technologies do, we’ve put together a few blogs, starting with this one. It explains Electronic Stability Control: a technology which any 5 star rated ANCAP car must now include.
Electronic Stability Control – ESC
Skids or slides on the road can be difficult to control, particularly where a road is in slippery or in bad condition. They can lead to a collision with another vehicle or to the vehicle sliding off the side off the road. In many cases this results in a roll-over, caused by the vehicle “tripping” over something like a kerb or drain. A roll-over is a very dangerous type of crash because many vehicles have insufficient roof strength to prevent them collapsing onto the occupants, and unrestrained objects in the vehicle become missiles which can injure occupants from direct impact.
ESC brakes each of the four wheels individually to help control a slide or skid. A multi-axis sensor determines whether the car is veering from the driver’s intended direction as indicated by the steering wheel position and the system cuts the throttle and applies brakes as required. Braking only one side of the vehicle makes it turn in that direction.
Stability control has been shown by Australian research funded by NRMA to reduce single-vehicle crashes by as much as 65 per cent in SUVs.
It is variously called ESC, ESP, DSC or VSC depending on the vehicle brand. On many vehicles ESC can be switched off but, unless you’re on a racetrack, in heavy snow or going off-road, you should leave it on at all times.
Next time, we will discuss Active Cruise Control.