Safety and the MINI’s intelligent electronics
Atty. Jerome G. Neri
The Scrutineer
MINI Cebu hosted and event called the MINI Driving experience. What an experience it was. While the MINI seems to be in the upper range of the price list for a car of its size, it is worth every penny and one really gets his money’s worth. What really impressed be about this car is the technology that they put to safety, making the car substantially easier to handle to avoid accidents. It is a car that you want to give your son or daughter as a first car.
It is common for new drivers to have a reckless phase in their driving life, some get through the phase, some crash and burn. I have seen a number of crashes where some of them were fatal, especially during my younger days. The main cause was the driver losing control of the car. A couple of years ago I remember that four teenagers were killed in a car crash in an upscale subdivision in Manila. It appeared that the driver was doing maneuvers beyond the capabilities of the car.
What is great about the MINI is that the car does not allow the driver to do dangerous maneuvers. Its traction control, electronic stability system and advanced anti-lock braking system are there to stop stupid recklessness with its intelligent electronics. I was able to experience this safety feature first hand.
The first test was for me to drive the car at full throttle towards an obstacle: the left side wheels would run over a long tarpaulin laid out on the road that has been made wet with soap and water while the right side tires was on normal cement tarmac. The moment both of the left side tires were on the very slippery tarpaulin, I was instructed to slam on the brakes. Normally such a maneuver would cause the car to skid and spin right, but with the MINI, it remained straight as an arrow and stopped in such a short distance. You could feel vibrations in the brake pedal that the car was balancing out the brakes to keep the car in a safe straight line in that sort of panic stop.
The next test was going through a corner at speed, and right in the middle of the corner, I was told to slam on the brakes. Doing the maneuver felt really awkward as my mind was telling me not to do it as I would just kill myself. Normally such a maneuver would cause the car to understeer and in the real world would drive right into another oncoming car, a cliff or a wall. But with the MINI, it just slows to a stop while maintaining the turning radius. Because the car also sensed that this was a panic type of braking, the hazard blinkers automatically turned on so as to warn the other cars around it.
The last test was on a very wet road going into a right-left chicane. I floored the gas pedal to about 60 to 70kph and was told to slam the brakes right before the right turn and be able to negotiate the chicane. Such a maneuver is just against the laws of physics. It’s either you crash due to understeer or oversteer. With the MINI, while standing on the brakes, it negotiated the chicane with ease. Very impressive.
There are many other strong points with the MINI, such as the go-kart like handling, in which the driver feels one with the car and the road. This was demonstrated in the gymkhana course that was set-up. We had to maneuver the car through different types of corners, a slalom and some reverse maneuvers and it proved to be a point-and-shoot car that can be described in one word as FUN.
I left the event more in awe of the safety features and the great handling of this car, thinking that if just all cars were as intelligent as the MINI, a huge number of road accidents could have been avoided.
To those who think that a MINI is too flashy for a first car, you are not investing on the flashiness of this cute little car but you are investing on safety. This is the kind of car that I would want to give my daughter when she reaches driving age as it will make me sleep better.
