An Analysis of Accident Claims for Cars with Blind Spot Detection (BSD) Technology in Malaysia

Traumatic injuries sustained by motorcyclists are the leading cause of death in all vehicular accidents in Malaysia. In view of this situation, the New Car Assessment Programme for Southeast Asian Countries (ASEAN NCAP) has proactively announced its New Roadmap 2021-2025 with a more inclusive assessment protocol, whereby a Motorcyclist Safety Pillar has been added. Items in the pillar include Blind Spot Detection and Blind Spot Visualisation (BSD/BSV). However, apart from a few existing studies, the evaluation of BSD technology in real-world crashes in Malaysia is still inconclusive. Therefore, the goal of the current study is to analyse the insurance claims in road accidents and crash distribution for cars equipped with BSD technology. In this study, the BSD technology is evaluated by the most popular car models on Malaysian roads for the selected years from 2017 to 2018. The total number of accident claims recorded was 259,033 involving several notable brands. Frontal crashes accounted for 51% of the cases with 133,121 claims and made up the highest number of accident claims, rear crashes made up 24% of cases with 62,106 claims, and side crashes registered only 5% with 12,885 claims. The number of side crashes showed about 11% reduction on average in the following year for all the makes-models selected. This analysis could become a future benchmark for the overall effectiveness of the BSD system in a road crashes involving the side crash. The finding of this study has consolidated ASEAN NCAP’s plans and initi atives to take the lead by implementing the use of the BSD technology in passenger cars to increase road safety.