A safe premium design

Vilsbiburg, June 24, 2014 - Beginning July 1, 2014, Germany will join other EU countries in requiring high-visibility safety vests in every car (European Norm EN 471). Many drivers who have already tried to stow safety vests in their vehicles know that they are anything but attractive. The bright orange or neon-yellow vests can certainly save a life, but inside the vehicle, the reflective neon colors often clash with the luxurious surface materials of a high-quality interior.

The Dräxlmaier Group has now unveiled an innovative interior design, which will not only increase safety for the occupants of the vehicle, but will also satisfy the requirements of premium design.

Automobile drivers will no longer have to stow the legally required safety vests in the door pockets, glove box or even the footwells as before; instead, in the Dräxlmaier Group interior concept, the safety vests will disappear into several small storage compartments. These could be in the center console, the instrument panel, or in the door panels and would no longer be visible. The high-quality look of the premium interior would not be marred by the garish neon colors of the safety vests, but would still be easy to find in case of emergency.

Stage 1: Safety vests are indicated after the hazard warning lights are activated If the hazard lights are activated after an accident, an occupant can open the storage compartment cover himself or herself by pressing on it, and then quickly remove the safety vest, slip it on and leave the vehicle. Using an optical indicator that lights up when the hazard warning lights are activated, the Dräxlmaier Group makes sure that the vehicle occupants always know exactly where the safety vest storage compartments are, even at night or under poor visibility conditions.

To do this, the market leader in interior systems for premium vehicles puts its leather expertise to good use. For example, the illuminated arrows that show the occupants the exact location of the safety vest compartments are visible in the leather-laminated areas in the cockpit only in an emergency. This is made possible by back-lit leather, which has micro-perforations in the appropriate areas, which lets the light through, but cannot be seen under normal circumstances. For improved visibility, the outlines of the vest storage compartments are also illuminated.

Stage 2: Automatic safety vest release after an accident
In an accident where the airbags deploy, the life-saving safety vests would be automatically released from the interior compartments at the same time, and would be available instantly. The idea by the automobile supplier is that the airbag sensors would simultaneously deploy the release of the safety vests in a crash situation. This is comparable with the principle of a sudden drop of pressure in an airplane cabin, which automatically releases the oxygen masks from compartments above the seats.

In the concept by the Dräxlmaier Group, the illuminated colored arrows assure that the vests are quickly located, as in Stage 1. This is the case even under very poor lighting and visibility conditions such as after an airbag deployment, when the air is full of gases and talcum, and the visibility is poor. And since during an accident, the vehicle occupants are often in an extremely stressful situation, reaching for the lifesaving vests should then be intuitive, very fast and simple.

Now the Dräxlmaier Group is looking for automobile manufacturers for to jointly develop this interior idea.