Image: Thomas Wieleck.

It’s a crisp autumn morning at Sydney Motorsport Park and I’ve already skidded in an E 300 sedan, emergency-braked and swerved in a GLA 250 4MATIC, made mincemeat of a rugged off-road track in a GLS 400D, and taken corners at speeds I ordinarily wouldn’t reach on the straight in an AMG GT R. So far, so much fun …

We’re being put through our paces by a crack team of instructors at Mercedes-Benz Accelerate, a driving event designed to improve our skills and showcase the range and capabilities of the Mercedes-Benz stable of vehicles. It’s also an insight into the advances in automotive safety that lie at the heart of this venerable German brand.

An enduring legacy

The origins of Mercedes-Benz safety development go back to the company’s inception by automotive pioneers Karl Benz and Gottlieb Daimler in 1926. Official records at the then Daimler-Benz AG company don’t start until the 1930s. Since then, Mercedes-Benz has documented all its innovations, starting with the concept of ‘passive safety’.

Passive safety systems are automotive design and technical features that protect people against the effects of an accident. Mercedes-Benz brought this concept to life in 1959 with the launch of its W111 luxury saloon, featuring a safety-enhanced body from which the term ‘crumple zone’ was coined. The W111 also utilised the concept of a ‘disarmed’ interior by reducing the number of hard or sharp controls and introduced wedge-pin door locks with two safety catches, setting the standard of passive safety for a generation of vehicles.

In the ensuing decades, Mercedes-Benz has been at the forefront of passive safety innovation, including the introduction of safety steering columns and, most important, airbags, whose development started in 1966 and was patented five years later. In 1981, Mercedes-Benz introduced a driver’s airbag as an option in its flagship S-Class series 126, and it was swiftly embraced by the global auto industry.

Side-by-side with passive safety, Mercedes-Benz introduced ‘active safety’, which continues to evolve to change the way we drive and survive. Active safety describes the use of supportive systems that intervene to avoid, or limit the severity, of an accident. The anti-lock braking (ABS) system is an example of your vehicle actively keeping you safe and was introduced for the first time in a W116 S-Class in 1978. Integrated with the Electronic Stability Program (ESP), input from the ABS sensors is also used to stabilise the car when cornering, being over- or under-steered, or skidding.

By Sally Feldman