The news are that ten of the world’s biggest carmakers together with federal safety regulators and an insurance industry trade group announced on Friday that automatic emergency braking will be a standard feature for car models sold in the United States.
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The technology is most effective at preventing rear-end collisions, an extremely common type of crash, that, in 2012, caused 1,700 deaths and 500,000 injuries, according to government statistics. Each will work closely with the NHTSA and the IIHS to come up with a timeline for implementation.
In June, the National Transportation Safety Board, a separate government agency, recommended that the automatic braking systems be made required on all new cars.
Automatic emergency braking includes a range of systems to prevent rear-end crashes and apply the brakes automatically.
The technology, which is already an option on some cars, uses on-vehicle sensors to detect a possible collision and applies brakes if the driver fails to respond to warning sounds.
“The evidence is mounting that AEB is making a difference”, said insurance institute president Adrian Lund. “This technology can compensate for the mistakes every driver makes because the systems are always on alert, monitoring the road ahead and never getting exhausted or distracted”. And if all ten automakers follow through on their pledges, it’ll have a huge effect on safety, since they currently control about 57 percent of the U.S. auto market.
Several studies, including a recent report from IIHS, show that AEB technology can reduce insurance injury claims by as much as 35 percent.
But safety advocates were swift to criticize the effort as a backroom deal that allows automakers to avoid the possibility that the Transportation Department will impose a legal requirement for inclusion of the braking systems in cars and set binding standards for the technology. Among the automotive technology suppliers that could benefit are Continental AG, Robert Bosch GmbH, Delphi Automotive Plc, Denso Corp and Autoliv Inc.
Foxx stated that if the automatic emergency braking feature is only installed in these high class vehicles then only a small proportion of people in the US will be able to take advantage of it. In other words, she pressurized other safety departments in the US to take action against all automakers to make the feature a norm in all upcoming vehicles.
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Nineteen GM models offer both technologies. Given that the organization recently made AEB mandatory for any vehicle hoping to earn a Top Safety Pick+ rating, it seems likely more manufacturers will be joining the ranks of this initial group at some point.
