Automatic emergency braking should become mandatory, feds say
Enlarge / Emergency braking systems have been on the road for some years, but now the federal government wants them to be mandatory equipment on all new light trucks and passenger cars. (credit: Volvo)
On Wednesday, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration issued a notice of proposed rulemaking that would see automatic emergency braking become a standard feature on all new light passenger vehicles. If adopted, NHTSA says it would save 360 lives and prevent 24,000 crashes each year. The feature uses a forward-looking sensor-usually radar but in some cases a camera-to detect whether a vehicle in front is slowing rapidly, alerting the driver if so and, should it be necessary, activating the brakes to slow the car.
"Today, we take an important step forward to save lives and make our roadways safer for all Americans," Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said. Just as lifesaving innovations from previous generations like seat belts and airbags have helped improve safety, requiring automatic emergency braking on cars and trucks would keep all of us safer on our roads."
NHTSA added automatic emergency braking to its list of recommended safety features in 2015. At the time, it started noting the presence or absence of this advanced driver assistance system when determining a car's rating under the New Car Assessment Program (NCAP), which is aimed at giving consumers safety information about new vehicles.