Is this the end of the collision repair business? With an alarmist opening sentence like that, you know you've got to keep reading.

One of the next big things on the automotive technology front is going to be collision avoidance systems. In fact, some major car manufacturers are already producing them, and they are currently being tested in the United Kingdom by Thatcham. Will these systems toll the death knell of the collision industry? Probably not, for several reasons.

The first reason is psychological. Most people have a problem with giving up control to a machine, even if you can prove to them that the machine does it better and faster than they do. Therefore, I don't see these systems as being a very popular option, either factory installed or aftermarket.

The second reason is software related. No matter how stable a piece of software is, it usually has a bug (or two, or a thousand) hidden in the code somewhere. One tiny software failure could turn what would have been a minor fender bender into a 100 car pile-up with matching fatalities. If that story hits the news, we can count on calls to ban these systems outright, or at least a sharp decline in sales.

The third reason is the limitations of the systems. By and large, they are only designed to prevent low-speed collisions, so a serious accident will still wind up in the shop.

What do you think?

Take a Kodak moment of the auto collision industry infrastructure. The inevitable demise of the industry, as we know it is starting to show signs of coming into the new millennium.

The auto collision industry internal operations is a bi-product of the industrial age and the external forces that influence change in the industry such as Manufacture, Government and Consumer are heading full steam ahead into new territory with or without approval. I would go as far as to say even Insurance, Techs and Suppliers as well as some collision repairers are looking for more of a balanced auto collision industry infrastructure that will not fumble when posed with the question -

Is this the end of the collision repair business?

I don’t believe there will ever be a total demise to the collision repair business. But, I do believe there will be directional change in internal operation procedures that is able to create opportunities from the trends of external forces.