2014 GMC Sierra Denali Revealed!

It’s been a long day and you’re making the long drive back home.

Your concentration drifts off for a second or two, just enough for your vehicle to cross into the opposite lane or the hard shoulder. It’s a dangerous scenario which is all too common for many drivers. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), an estimated 34,080 people died in motor vehicle traffic crashes in 2012, many of those consisting of collisions with oncoming traffic.

Now imagine feeling a vibration from the seat cushion of the driver’s seat. The sudden vibration jolts you alert, just in time to snap to and with the jerk of the steering wheel, yank the car back into its proper lane. That’s what General Motors’ Safety Alert Seat hopes to offer in the redesigned 2014 GMC Sierra.

Good Vibrations

The 2014 GMC Sierra is the second vehicle to offer the Safety Alert Seat feature, after the 2013 Cadillac XTS. However, it is the first time that this feature has been offered in a full-size pickup truck. Along with Forward Collision Alert and Lane Departure Warning, the optional Safety Alert Seat rounds out a full assortment of safety equipment designed to protect occupants by helping drivers to avoid serious accidents.

The Safety Alert Seat uses “the tactile sense to communicate crash threat direction,” providing “an effective and intuitive way to cut through the clutter of visual and auditory sensory information that drivers routinely experience,” according to Raymond Kiefer, GM’s technical fellow for active safety. The haptic driver’s seat provides this tactile sense through vibrations whenever the Lane Departure Warning system detects a vehicle lane departure without signaling.

For instance, if the Lane Departure Warning system detects that the vehicle is drifting to the right, the bottom right side of the seat vibrates, alerting the driver to take corrective action immediately. The Safety Alert Seat also works in concert with the Forward Collision Alert system – if the vehicle approaches too fast on another vehicle up ahead, both sides of the seat will vibrate simultaneously.

Safety Comes First

This new haptic feedback system is the end result of a recent study conducted by GM. The study showed that drivers were more likely to respond quicker to vibrations than the chimes and beeps emanated by current safety systems. Nevertheless, the safety equipment featured in the 2014 Sierra will still feature visual aids on the dashboard whenever these systems come into play.

In addition to the Safety Alert Seat, Lane Departure Warning and Forward Collision Alert, the 2014 Sierra also features six standard airbags along with StabiliTrak, trailer sway control and a rear back-up camera with front and rear park assist. All of these features will be available when the Sierra goes on sale this summer.

Car manufacturers around the world are always looking for new and innovative ways of improving driver safety. GM hopes that this new feature will make a world of difference in preventing avoidable accidents and lowering fatality rates.