Blind Spot Intervention System

The automobile industry carries many secrets—facts that remain inscrutable to all but industry veterans and insiders. One of these open secrets is the existence of a blind spot. Every car that rolls off the production line anywhere in the world has, at least, one area on the perimeter of the vehicle’s body that is invisible to the driver. As tiny as they may be, these blind spots are of great significance to motorists. Infiniti, Nissan’s luxury brand, introduced its patented Blind Spot Intervention System, a radar-based system that monitors the blind spots on your car while you are on the road. The system also features active braking assistance that goes beyond audiovisual warnings, engaging a selective braking system if your car is drifting away from its lane or is about to collide with another car.

Blind spot accidents are the cause of thousands of dollars in damages and when no clear fault or cause is established, it represents additional costs in insurance premiums or co-payment. Several leading manufacturers including Audi, BMW, Honda, Hyundai, and Volvo have begun to work on Blind Spot Intervention Systems for their models. The system typically uses side mirror-mounted light alerts and cabin audio alerts.

Blind spot monitoring is particularly useful during lane changes, alerting a driver to vehicles that enter a passing lane and engaging active or passive braking systems on the wheels located on the other side of the car in order to prevent a collision and re-center the car in the lane. The system also uses a camera located in the cabin that monitors lane markers and works in conjunction with the radar system when the car’s speed exceeds 20 miles per hour. On the Infiniti Q70, the Blind Spot Intervention System can be disabled by toggling a dashboard-mounted switch.