2024 Accord sedans are on display at a Honda dealership on April 14, 2023 in Highlands Ranch, Colorado.
David Zalubowski/AP
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David Zalubowski/AP
2024 Accord sedans are on display at a Honda dealership on April 14, 2023 in Highlands Ranch, Colorado.
David Zalubowski/AP
DETROIT — In the not-so-distant future, automatic emergency braking will have to be standard on all new passenger vehicles in the United States, a requirement that the government says will save hundreds of lives and prevent injuries. thousands of injuries each year.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration unveiled the final version of the new rule Monday and called it the most important safety rule in the last two decades. It is designed to prevent many rear-end and pedestrian collisions and reduce the estimated 40,000 road deaths that occur each year.
“We have a traffic fatality crisis,” Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said in an interview. “So we have to do something.”
This is the U.S. government’s first attempt to regulate automated driving features and will likely help alleviate some of the problems that have emerged with driver assistance and fully automated driving systems.
Although around 90% of new vehicles now have automatic braking as standard under a voluntary agreement with car manufacturers, there are currently no performance requirements, so some systems may not be also effective. The new regulations set standards for vehicles to stop automatically and avoid hitting other vehicles or pedestrians, even at night.
“I think part of the way we’re going to move past the unacceptable level of traffic fatalities that we’ve lived with my whole life is because of this type of technology,” said Buttigieg, who is 42. “We have to make sure that of course we set high standards of performance.
The regulation, which will require additional engineering to strengthen software and possibly add hardware such as radar, will not take effect for more than five years. This will give automakers time to harden their systems during the normal model update cycle, NHTSA said.
It will also increase prices, which NHTSA estimates to be $354 million per year in 2020 dollars, or $82 per vehicle. But Buttigieg said it would save 362 lives a year, prevent about 24,000 injuries and save billions of dollars in property damage.
Critics say the standards should have been adopted sooner and don’t appear to require systems to detect people riding bikes, scooters or other vulnerable people.
The new rule requires all passenger vehicles weighing 10,000 pounds (4,500 kilograms) or less to be equipped with forward collision warning, automatic emergency braking and pedestrian detection braking.
The standards require vehicles to stop and avoid hitting a vehicle in front of them at speeds up to 62 miles per hour (100 kilometers per hour). They must also apply the brakes automatically up to 90 mph (145 km/h) if a collision with the vehicle in front is imminent.
The systems must also detect pedestrians day or night, and must stop and avoid a pedestrian at a speed of 31 mph to 40 mph (50 km/h to 64 km/h) depending on the location and movement of the pedestrian. pedestrian.
The agency said that in 2019, nearly 2.2 million rear-end collisions were reported to police nationwide, killing 1,798 people and injuring 574,000 others. Sixty percent of fatal rear-end crashes and 73% of injury crashes occurred on roads with a speed limit of 60 mph (97 km/h) or less.
Additionally, 6,272 pedestrians were killed in crashes, 65% of whom were struck by the front of a passenger vehicle.
The vast majority of deaths, injuries and property damage occur at speeds above 40 km/h, speeds that are not covered by the voluntary agreement, the agency said.
“Only regulation can ensure that all vehicles are equipped with AEB (automatic emergency braking) meeting minimum performance requirements,” the regulation states.
NHTSA would conduct random testing to determine whether automakers are meeting the standards.
The agency said it is not requiring the type of sensors that every automaker must have to meet the requirements. It depends on the car manufacturers. But in tests of 17 vehicles, only one – a 2023 Toyota Corolla equipped with cameras and radar – met the standards.
The regulation specifies that radars should be added to approximately 5% of systems in order to comply with the requirements.
Cathy Chase, president of Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety, said the new standards will make it clear to car buyers that AEB will work properly. Most consumers, she says, are unaware that there are currently no requirements.
“Overall, it’s better to have AEB than not to have it,” she said. “So once the AEB rule is in place, the federal government will once again do its job and protect consumers.”
NHTSA said it changed its original proposal, giving automakers more than five years instead of three to comply with the standards. Chase said shorter would be better.
“The shorter the time frame, the more people will be saved, the sooner they will get into cars and our roads will be safer for everyone,” she said.
Chase said she wasn’t happy that the rule didn’t appear to include standards for cyclists or people using scooters.
News Source : www.npr.org
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