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To be honest, that damage doesn't really look that significant. Closing speed maybe 15mph? The crumple zones did their jobs and protected both cars.
I had an accident in my C240 that caused $24,000 in todays dollars. (Wheel came off an approaching truck and smacked me square in the radiator, each going 35mph.)
Air bags didn't deploy.
My damage was just as ugly, but I kept the car another 8 years.
I was surprised at the cost, but it doesn't take a lot to cost a lot any more.
Did it reach the front crossmember? If not, and since your airbags didn't deploy, it's not considered a major incident by some.
Usually the following car driver is assumed to be at fault, even if there is a car malfunction.
I don't think you have any complaints about airbag deployment since it doesn't look like they were appropriate.
IMO your question is whether the Brake Assist was working or not. And there are a lot sf variables such as when or if your Wife braked, or even accelerated in the Moment.
"Faulty emergency braking" would be my question, although it would be difficult to prove it was a defect without a good forensics team.
Hope there aren't any lingering effects.
Edit- Did the SOS place an emergency call? Flashers flash?
For the airbags, airbags deploy when they need to and don't when they don't. The fact that she is okay tells us the airbags weren't required. Deploying the airbags when not required potentially causes her more injury, and just increases repair cost.
As for the automated emergency braking, thats situational. The fact that she was already braking likely had something to do with why it did not intervene. It also could have been the angle of the sun, dirty sensors, any number of things. In any event, those features are designed to help reduce the likelihood of an accident and/or mitigate the severity of an accident. The car is not an autonomous car, and they do not make it impossible to be in an accident.
In any event, there is no failure here that caused the accident or contributed to more injury. To be clear, your GLE did not rear end vehicle in front of it, your wife rear ended a vehicle in front of her with her GLE.
As noted, the Airbags have their own parameters and it is not necessarily a cause for concern that they didn't go off, but worth checking.
I am more surprised about the braking, and wondering if someone (the driver of either car) suddenly changed lanes or something that made it hard to detect.
Mercedes should be able to pull the ER (black box) information to determine what happened and why the airbags didn't deploy or the car didn't brake. Not sure if they will actually do that (hopefully they will as this is a safety issue) and also not sure if they would share the results with you. but it is worth asking.
As noted, the Airbags have their own parameters and it is not necessarily a cause for concern that they didn't go off, but worth checking.
I am more surprised about the braking, and wondering if someone (the driver of either car) suddenly changed lanes or something that made it hard to detect.
Mercedes should be able to pull the ER (black box) information to determine what happened and why the airbags didn't deploy or the car didn't brake. Not sure if they will actually do that (hopefully they will as this is a safety issue) and also not sure if they would share the results with you. but it is worth asking.
Good thoughts, but we don't know if the driver was braking, stopped braking, or even accelerating. Taking evasive action or not.
The cell phone that sensed an impact likely was thrown to the floor, since the damage doesn't look like a big impact.
Too many unknowns to know, but I'd ask the Dealer to investigate safety systems. Their diagnostics can ID bad sensors, but IDK about accelerometers.
If you take a simple example of 2 cars going in steady speed, same lane in commute traffic. Car ahead stops suddenly, car behind brakes. This is when the active brake assist system should activate irrespective what driver does. Read the manual, it says same. Obviously they gonna put a disclaimer. But that cant be a reason to wash your hands off.
It didn't work, it's a safety issue. Many in this forum think it's not. Fortunately, Mercedes thinks reasonable and are coming for an inspection. What they will tell me, what they wont is a different story but lets see.
If you take a simple example of 2 cars going in steady speed, same lane in commute traffic. Car ahead stops suddenly, car behind brakes. This is when the active brake assist system should activate irrespective what driver does. Read the manual, it says same. Obviously they gonna put a disclaimer. But that cant be a reason to wash your hands off.
It didn't work, it's a safety issue. Many in this forum think it's not. Fortunately, Mercedes thinks reasonable and are coming for an inspection. What they will tell me, what they wont is a different story but lets see.
I can't say for sure if this is a safety issue or not, simply because I don't have enough data.
The car might not be able to detect the car in front. It could be because of a dirty sensor, or it could be a bad sensor.
The brake application could also be cancelled because of the driver's action (brake let go, or accelerate).
Without knowing that the driver is doing exactly, and what the car "see", I personally can't say if it is a defect or the car, or limitation of the system, or could also be the driver's action.
One thing I can say for sure is that the system, like a lot of other safety assistance system for most if not all cars out there (at the moment) is not a 100% foolproof system, and the driver is still be responsible for the safety operation of the car.
If you take a simple example of 2 cars going in steady speed, same lane in commute traffic. Car ahead stops suddenly, car behind brakes. This is when the active brake assist system should activate irrespective what driver does. Read the manual, it says same. Obviously they gonna put a disclaimer. But that cant be a reason to wash your hands off.
It didn't work, it's a safety issue. Many in this forum think it's not. Fortunately, Mercedes thinks reasonable and are coming for an inspection. What they will tell me, what they wont is a different story but lets see.
I'm interested to hear what Mercedes tells you regarding the collision avoidance braking system, please post any info they provided if you can. I do believe the airbags worked as designed, but I'm interested to learn of any feedback Mercedes provides on that safety feature as well.
If you take a simple example of 2 cars going in steady speed, same lane in commute traffic. Car ahead stops suddenly, car behind brakes. This is when the active brake assist system should activate irrespective what driver does. Read the manual, it says same. Obviously they gonna put a disclaimer. But that cant be a reason to wash your hands off.
It didn't work, it's a safety issue. Many in this forum think it's not. Fortunately, Mercedes thinks reasonable and are coming for an inspection. What they will tell me, what they wont is a different story but lets see.
The point is that you can't rely on those technologies to prevent an accident. They work, but they don't always work. Sometimes they stop the car dead in the road with nothing in front of you...thats happened to me twice since I've started driving cars with that technology.
You also don't know that it didn't work, it may have worked and was not able to decelerate in time to prevent the accident, but the deceleration it was able to do may have helped make the accident more minor.
Even if that feature didn't work in that circumstance, MB is not at fault for the accident, your wife is at fault. Thats the point...you seem to be reaching trying to blame MB for this and its the drivers responsibility to make sure that they don't run their car into anything.
Its good MB is going to do an inspection, they should do that. Even if they find that the feature malfunctioned...they still are not to blame for the accident...your wife rear ended another car and she is at fault.
I agree. While I appreciate all of these active safety measures, I sure as heck will never, ever rely on them. I treat these features as a stop gap in case I mess up and even then I assume it won’t work. That’s why I can never understand people taking naps while doing Tesla’s “self driving.” Forget that.
Since I am sitting in the car while my wife is shopping, thought I would check out the screen for the active brake assist and attention assist features. As I thought both can be turned off, does the OP know if these features were on as indicated by the blue dot on his wife’s GLE?
02-01-2023, 08:19 PM
