12 October 2002: A ‘safety net’ radar system that senses when a car behind is about to collide with your own car and then optimises the seatbelt and other safety systems is just one of a bundle of innovations installed in a standard Ford Taurus for the 9th World Congress on Intelligent Transport Systems in Chicago this coming week.

The system also activates a strobe light in the rear to warn the oncoming driver, and turns on internal danger warnings for the driver and passenger.

These include switching a green strip in the A-pillar to red (right), and changing the white colour of the instrument cluster to red (above).

The ‘Telematics to Safety’, T2S for short, Taurus also has a range of cameras installed, for monitoring ‘blindspots’ unvisible in normal mirrors, and for checking on a child in the back seat. Side-mounted cameras greatly enhance passenger-side visibility to help alert the driver to pedestrians, bicycles or merging vehicles.

The car’s NightEye vision system features a low-light color camera system to warn the driver of possible threats that cannot be seen with the naked eye.

A comprehensive reconfigurable central display screen goes beyond the norm by being able to display all other vehicles around the Taurus, or checking on the position of passengers without having to look around (below).

Also to be shown at the ITS congress from Ford Motor Company will be the Windstar MPV T2S concept which features advanced software, similar to that used by the military and airline industry, which can help determine the probability of an accident and the desired actions needed to mitigate or even avoid an accident.