Subaru's safety systems put to the test

Tan Chong International, local distributor for Subaru, organised a Safety Park test drive on 8 January 2020 in order to allow members of the media to get a better understanding of the suite of safety systems available on the latest Subaru models.

At the test drive event were the Subaru Forester, Subaru Forester e-Boxer, as well as the Subaru XV.

Attendees to the event firstly got to experience the benefits of Subaru's Symmetrical All-Wheel Drive as well as the new Subaru Global Platform by piloting the Foresters though a slalom.

The test was then followed by a trial of the EyeSight Driver Assist Technology, with the same Foresters being piloted by both Subaru staff and members of the media as they drive into a barrier.

Despite the high speeds that some of the drivers put the Foresters through the slalom, the cars all made it through the trial without incident, demonstrating the benefits of having the high traction levels from Subaru's Symmetrical All-Wheel Drive, coupled with the sharpened handling of the new Subaru Global platform, aided as well by the lowered centre-of-gravity from the Subaru's famous boxer engines.

Subaru's EyeSight system's Pre-collision Braking likewise demonstrated its worth, with all the tested Foresters stopping well before contact with the barrier, just as intended.

But what if you happen to be reversing in your Subaru? As it turns out, it makes no difference, given that the Forester e-Boxer also comes equipped with Reverse Automatic Braking, as we got to learn about at the second station of the Safety Park.

Here, a Forester e-Boxer was reversed into a barrier at increasingly higher speeds, and, despite being fully-laden with four passengers and a driver, the car managed to stop just before the barrier every single time.

The demonstrations then ended with a (thankfully!) more sedate parking demonstration inside of a Subaru XV. Here, technologies such as the Pre-Collision Throttle Management ensure that you do not accelerate as long as the car detects objects in front of the vehicle that it is likely to impact.