DETROIT – In the near future, automatic emergency braking will be required to be standard on all novel passenger vehicles in the United States. This requirement, the government says, will save hundreds of lives and prevent thousands of injuries each year.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration unveiled the final version of the novel regulation on Monday and called it the most critical safety regulation in the last two decades. It is designed to prevent many rear-end and pedestrian collisions and reduce the approximately 40,000 road traffic fatalities that occur each year.
“We are facing a crisis in terms of road fatalities,” Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said in an interview. “That’s why we have to do something about it.”
This is the US government’s first attempt to regulate automated driving features and will likely aid curb some of them problems that surfaced with driver assistance and fully automated driving systems.
Although around 90% of novel vehicles now come standard with automatic braking as part of a voluntary agreement with car manufacturers, there are currently no performance requirements, so some systems may not be as effective. The novel rules set standards for automatically stopping vehicles and avoiding hitting other vehicles or pedestrians, even at night.
“I think we’re going to overcome the unacceptable levels of road deaths that we’ve had my entire life thanks in part to these kinds of technologies,” Buttigieg, who is 42, said. “We need to make sure we set high standards for performance with confidence.”
The rules, which will require additional engineering work to improve software and possibly add hardware such as radar, will not come into force for another five years. This will give automakers time to improve their systems during the normal model update cycle, NHTSA says.
It will also boost prices, which NHTSA estimates at $354 million a year in 2020, or $82 per vehicle. But Buttigieg said it would save 362 lives a year, prevent about 24,000 injuries and spare billions in property damage.
Critics say the standards should have been introduced earlier and do not appear to require systems to detect people on bikes, scooters or other vulnerable people.
The novel 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 colliding with the vehicle in front of them at speeds of up to 62 miles per hour (100 kilometers per hour). They must also apply the brakes automatically at speeds of up to 145 km/h if a collision with the vehicle in front is imminent.
The systems must also detect pedestrians day and night and must stop and avoid pedestrians at speeds of 31 to 40 miles per hour (50 to 64 km/h), depending on location and pedestrian traffic.
The agency said almost 2.2 million road accidents were reported to police across the country in 2019, killing 1,798 people and injuring 574,000. Sixty percent of fatal rear-end crashes and 73% of injury crashes occurred on roads with speed limits of 60 mph (97 km/h) or less.
Additionally, 6,272 pedestrians died in accidents, of which 65% were hit by the front of a passenger vehicle.
The agency said the huge majority of deaths, injuries and property damage occur at speeds exceeding 40 km/h, speeds not covered by the voluntary agreement.
“Only regulation can ensure that all vehicles are equipped with AEB (automatic emergency braking) that meets the minimum performance requirements,” the regulation states.
NHTSA would conduct random tests to determine whether automakers meet the standards.
The agency said it does not require what type of sensors each automaker must have to meet the requirements. It depends on the car manufacturers. However, when 17 vehicles were tested, only one – a 2023 Toyota Corolla equipped with cameras and radar – met the standards.
The regulation states that radar would need to be added to approximately 5% of systems to meet the requirements.
Cathy Chase, president of Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety, said the novel standards will make it clear to car buyers that the AEB system will function properly. Most consumers, she said, are unaware that there are currently no requirements.
“Generally speaking, it’s better to have AEB than not to have AEB,” she said. “So with the AEB rule in place, the federal government will once again do its job and protect consumers.”
NHTSA said so changed its original proposal, giving carmakers more than five years to meet the standards instead of three. Chase said shorter would be better.
“The shorter the time, the more people will be saved, the sooner they will get into cars and the safer our roads will be for everyone,” she said.
Chase said she was not cheerful that the rule did not include standards for cyclists and people using scooters.
