A Mercedes-Benz Actros safety upgrade that uses five radars will be presented at the Brisbane Truck Show from May 15-18.
Mercedes-Benz has further improved safety for drivers and other road uses with a new Active Brake Assist 6 safety package.
The Actros already had one radar, which was centrally mounted and worked with a camera installed behind the windscreen.
Engineers have now fitted radars on the outer edge of the front bumper and on each side of the cab.
This enables a 270-degree view around the vehicle and allows for the clever Active Side Guard Assist 2 (ASGA) system to be improved by covering an even greater area than before.
It can even stop the truck when it is turning left (up to 20km/h) if it detects a hazard. This all comes in addition to the truck’s ability to automatically brake for vehicles or pedestrians in the event the driver does not respond to warnings of a potential collision.
Daimler Truck has a long history of including the latest active safety features, having first introduced AEBS on its Australian trucks in 2012.
The new safety features will be standard on all Actros models later this year.
Daimler Truck Australia Pacific President and CEO, Daniel Whitehead, says improved real-world safety is something his company prioritises.
“Real world safety comes first, second and third at Daimler Truck,” Whitehead said.
“We want to do everything we can to reduce road trauma.”
Daimler Truck Australia Pacific Sales, Marketing and Operations Vice President, Andrew Assimo, says it was a simple decision to include the best safety features it could in the Actros.
“This is remarkable safety technology and we are thrilled we can include it as a fully-integrated system in the Mercedes-Benz product,” he said.
“Our customers really value the advanced safety features that have always long been a part of the Daimler Truck offering, because nothing is more important than protecting drivers and other road users.”
It amazes me that anyone would need radar to tell them of potential hazards. In all of my driving career I never needed radar; I was just a good driver. I was always aware of what was going on around me. I still am, at 72 years old. I have an absolutely clean driving record; and, no-one was ever injured, in any way, through my driving (including whilst operating cranes, fork-lifts, and other machinery). My loads were always tied-down correctly and securely; and, I was never over-weight. If an employer ever wanted me to break the law, I told them to ‘shove the job’. All that stuff is, to me, part of being a driver. Give it another five or ten years, and we’ll just be glorified ‘steering-wheel monitors’; not professional drivers.