Motorists prioritise safety over vanity, says Goodyear

Drivers chose safety (36 per cent) as the most important reason to have an innovative feature on a car, rather than whether the feature looks good (2 per cent) according to a survey from Goodyear Tyres.

Practicality ranked second highest (34 per cent), whilst vanity dropped to the bottom of the priority list, with just 2 per cent of drivers admitting that having a feature in their car is important to them because it looks good.

1 in 10 (10 per cent) of drivers claim having the latest technology in their car is of most importance to them and when asked to rank features in order of importance, 13 per cent chose their SatNav, 4 per cent opted for cruise control and autonomous capability and 9 per cent admitted they couldn’t live without their Bluetooth device.

With so much hype around new technologies in the motoring world, Goodyear Tyres decided to find out what technological advances are most important to motorists in the UK.

The tyre manufacturer asked drivers to suggest one feature they would invent for their dream car and has combined the suggestions into a full concept vehicle. The result, a fully autonomous concept car, including:

1. Steering wheel sensors. Monitor driver’s vital health signs and detect any serious decline in health. Car’s autonomous mode takes over and drives to a place of safety when it detects an emergency.
2. Bio-car. An engine that runs solely on household waste.
3. Remotely control the entire car from your phone. Features: auto de-frosting windscreen, pre-heated steering wheel, pre-set SatNav.
4. A car that transforms in to a sleep pod and working space.
5. Connected car. HUD Wi-Fi connected to the car’s engine management.
6. Braking related stop lamps. Dimmable to coincide with the pressure applied when stopping.
7. Eagle-360 tyre. A tyre that has sensors embedded within the rubber to communicate information about the road and weather conditions to the car. In turn, the connected autonomous car could share that info to the cloud and onto other self-driving cars.

Speaking about the concept car, Kate Rock, spokesperson at Goodyear Tyres, comments: “It seems the dreams and wishes of British drivers are not that far away from the realities we are seeing emerge in the automotive world. Perhaps unlike past tastes that focused on how the car looked, todays driver preference appears to focus more on practical and safety features. As cars become increasingly tailored towards the needs of everyday drivers incorporating new technologies, maybe this concept car won’t be that far away from those we will drive in the not too distant future.”