It has shown a significant reduction in the number of injuries caused by incorrectly stepping on the pedal.
Reversing and bumping into something is the worst thing. This is a terrible thing to do. You should always know where your car ends. You can do a lot of damage at low speeds.
It is possible to only hope that if you do hit something and then back into a spot, there will be a better excuse than “pedal misuse.” Or, using the accelerator instead of the brake. This can only happen if you aren’t paying attention to what’s going on. If you are in a bad state, you shouldn’t be driving.
It is still a problem, so Toyota created “Intelligent Clearance Sonar” in order to address it. It’s also highly efficient, according to new data.
Toyota examined parking lot accidents involving three vehicles with the ICS system – the Alphard minivans and the Vellfire minivans and The Prius – and found that accidents involving pedal misapplication dropped by 70%, while those that occurred while reversing fell 40%.
ICS monitors a larger area than traditional parking sensors and can automatically apply brakes if it senses that there is a danger. This will either mitigate the impact or prevent it from happening. To help spot obstacles, the system can display views from the top of the car or the driver’s view on the info screen.
Survey data included 2,500 accidents that were reported by insurance companies for 63,000 cars, 26,000 of which were equipped with ICS. Pedal misapplication incidents were reported by the participants.
It is worth noting that pedal misapplication was only a small percentage of all accidents that were reported. However, that number has dropped to 0.02 percent with ICS – since incidents are self-reported, it is likely that the actual incidence is higher. Reversing accidents dropped from around 1.175 percent down to 0.75 percent.
In 2015, ICS was standard-fitted on the Alphard and Vellfire as well as the Prius. It can also be fitted to the Allion, Premio sedans and Lexus RX SUV.