I am more than usually pro-Swedish at the moment. I’ve just read the Stieg Larsson Millennium trilogy. What the novels lack in steamy sauna sex scenes and blind-drunk vodka antics, they more than make up for in their unswerving dedication to coffee.

There are more coffee machines, more meetings in coffee shops, and more cups of coffee offered and drunk, than there are near-misses between bikes and buses in Oxford in a whole year.

Being impressionable, my coffee intake has rocketed to a gut-ravaging 17-a-day habit.

This makes me a nervous cyclist. Or it did until I read about Volvo’s new safety system: Collision Warning with Full Auto Brake and Pedestrian Detection.

It is being developed for the Volvo S60, out next year and was quite clearly named before Team Volvo had hit the coffee pot.

How does it work? A radar in the car’s front grille, coupled with a video camera in the wing mirror combine data to track and predict pedestrian movements.

The system provides a warning when any pedestrian errs – or is likely to stray – into the car’s trajectory. If the driver ignores the warning, the car will brake automatically up to 25 kmh and stop by itself if the speed is under 25 kmh. Wow. To see a video of it in action, search for “S60” on www.copenhagenize.com Too good to be true? Well, yes. The system doesn’t detect cyclists – yet. The good burghers of Gothenburg are working on it though. Volvo’s Martin Magnusson told a Danish newspaper: “Cyclists will perhaps be next on the list, and then animals. It is very complicated to teach the system to read pedestrians’ form and structure and separate them from other objects.

“It’s just as important to not send false warnings as it is to register pedestrians. If the system beeps, warns and brakes too often, the driver will tire of it and shut it down,”

When the system is up and running, I really hope Oxford drivers and bus companies invest in it.

Imagine not having a bus cruising at 15 mph two metres behind you, all the way into town. And no more road-raging rat-runners trying to force you from the side roads.

Imagine fewer accidents: the Swedes have invested in this system because 16 per cent of road deaths there are pedestrians – and a reduction of speed from 50kmh to 25kmh will cut the risk of death by 85 per cent.

The Swedish government has set itself the goal of achieving zero road casualties (dream on). Volvo reckon they can produce a crash-proof car by 2020.

In Oxfordshire during the past 20 years, I was shocked to discover that cars have killed 140 pedestrians, not to mention 753 seriously injured and 2975 slightly injured. Cars have killed fewer cyclists (40 deaths) but have injured a lot more – 539 seriously and 4467 slightly in 20 years.

Bikes, conversely, have never killed or injured any drivers in Oxfordshire. Bikes have killed no pedestrians, but seriously injured 26 and slightly injured 81.

It’s time again for New Year’s Resolutions. I am deadly serious about mine: it is to leave the house 10 minutes earlier every time I go out, so I don’t always need to cycle so crazily fast.

Whether you’re a driver, a cyclist, or both, why not think about what you can do in 2010 to make your journey safer, slower and much more chilled.