Nissan has unveiled a new Rear Door Alert technology that will remind you to check for passengers in the rear seats after you exit the car. The technology is meant to help prevent drivers from accidentally leaving children or other precious cargo in the car, especially as temperatures rise in the summer.
How does it work? The Rear Door Alert system monitors the rear door switches to detect their open/closed status prior to and after a trip. If the system detects that a rear door was opened/closed prior to a trip, but then was not re-opened again after the trip was completed, the system responds with a series of notifications, starting with a display in the instrument panel and progressing to subtle but distinctive chirps of the horn.
Obviously there are times when a driver might open the rear door to throw in a gym bag or grab something in the rear seat, so the system is easily configurable and can be turned off.
“The idea is if you open a rear door, whether to put a child or a package in the rear seat, the vehicle will help alert you when you get to your destination that you may want to check the rear seat,” said Marlene Mendoza, a Nissan mechanical engineer. “We’ve built in enough time that you don’t have to rush, but if you don’t open the rear door again when you get out of the vehicle, we want you to think for a moment about what you may have put in the back seat.”
The Rear Door System will be standard on the 2018 Nissan Pathfinder.
Source: Nissan
