The top of the Mercedes-Benz range is a harbinger of the great technology to come for the rest of us. Anti-lock brakes, seatbelt pretensioners, and crumple zones are just a few of the safety innovations that debuted in big German sedans, then trickled their way down to more affordable rides.

Like the newly unveiled BMW 7-series, next year’s Mercedes E-Class sedan will be stuffed with great tech, including a bunch of nifty safety and semi-autonomous driving features. It’s a step-down from the flagship S-Class (where many of the innovations debut), but it’s still full of neat stuff—including one all new trick that might save your ears in a crash.

The E-Class will be able to drive nearly autonomously in some situations, maintaining speed and making minor steering adjustments on the highway. It can help the driver steer to avoid obstacles without losing control, and can use some Android smartphones to unlock and start the car instead of a key. It can even communicate wirelessly with some other Benzes to learn about imminent danger ahead.

But not all technological advancements come down to robot driving, or using Bluetooth to start a car. Sometimes the best advancements are the ones that address basic problems, and make you go “duh, why didn’t anyone think of that before?”

As anyone who’s been in a car accident can tell you, smashing two multi-ton chunks of metal together is loud.

Luckily, our bodies have a special trick to protect us from the damage that kind of sound can do. When your ear hears a sudden loud noise, the acoustic reflex contracts the stapedius muscle in the middle ear to block out the sound, protecting the sensitive eardrums and other bits of the inner ear.

Mercedes has taken advantage of this in the E-Class, with a new feature called Pre-Safe Sound. When the car senses an imminent impact (using onboard cameras and ultrasonic sensors), the stereo plays a loud static-type noise around 85 decibels. It’s not so loud that it hurts, but it’s loud enough to trigger the acoustic reflex and protect the ear from the much louder sound of the accident that arrives a moment later.

Basically, if it’s going to hurt, it’ll make noise. Merc’s goal is to first avoid an accident entirely—and if that isn’t possible, to reduce the consequences of it.

Whether the feature will actually benefit passengers is a little up in the air. Kim Cavitt AuD, president of the Academy of Doctors of Audiology, confirms it could be helpful, but hesitates to give it her scientific blessing. “I would want to see the research on that.”

There are more than 30,000 traffic accident fatalities in the US each year, but substantially more injuries—an estimated 2.31 million in 2013 alone. Lots of focus ends up on the fatalities, but anything that can be done to reduce the severity and number of those injuries can affect literally millions of drivers a year.

This isn’t a cure for polio we’re talking about. According to one study, hearing loss due to air bag deployment (which can create a pressure wave as high as 150 to 170dB) is considered very rare, so it’s unclear how big this problem really is. And the automaker’s work on autonomous safety features that avoid accidents to begin with will surely have a greater impact on keeping us in good health.

Still, it’s a neat idea that could help some people—or at least help convince them to buy a Mercedes.