In a key move to improve highway safety, the U.S. Department of Transportation’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) announced that automatic emergency braking (AEB) will be a mandatory feature in all new passenger cars and light trucks by September 2029. This decision is part of the Department’s National Highway Safety Strategy to reduce the alarming rate of fatalities on U.S. roadways.
The new federal motor vehicle safety standard, FMVSS No. 127, will save at least 360 lives and prevent a minimum of 24,000 injuries per year. AEB systems, which use sensors to detect imminent collisions with vehicles or pedestrians and automatically apply the brakes, are expected to significantly reduce rear-end collisions and pedestrian collisions.
US Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said: “he new vehicle safety standards we finalized today will save hundreds of lives and prevent tens of thousands of injuries every year..” He also emphasized that the bipartisan infrastructure bill is not only making historic investments in transportation, but is also ushering in a new era of safer travel.
The new standard requires all cars to be able to stop and avoid contact with a vehicle ahead at speeds of up to 62 miles per hour. The systems must also detect pedestrians both during the day and in the dark. Furthermore, the standard requires the system to automatically apply the brakes up to 145 km/h when a collision with the vehicle in front is imminent and up to 45 km/h when a pedestrian is detected.
Sophie Shulman, deputy administrator of the NHTSA, said: “Automatic emergency braking is proven to save lives and reduce serious injuries from frontal crashes, and this technology is now mature enough to require it in all new cars and light trucks”. She added that the technology is so advanced that they require these systems to be even more effective at higher speeds and to detect pedestrians.
The new regulation, which applies to nearly all U.S. light-duty vehicles, represents a significant step toward the Department’s National Highway Safety Strategy. Launched in January 2022, the strategy takes a safe systems approach, building multiple layers of protection with safer roads, safer people, safer vehicles, safer speeds and better post-crash care.
This move is considered the most significant safety rule of the past two decades, designed to prevent many pedestrian collisions and collisions and reduce the estimated 40,000 traffic deaths per year.
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