WASHINGTON — The Biden administration plans to require all new light-duty vehicles to come with automatic emergency braking, officials announced Wednesday.
The announcement comes amid consistently high traffic deaths after a spike in crashes during the pandemic. Leaders at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration estimated the rule, if finalized, would save more than 360 lives annually.
“We know this work is going to save lives, make sure that there won’t be that empty chair at the dinner table,” said Deputy Transportation Secretary Polly Trottenberg. “It will avoid billions of dollars in economic cost, saving lives, reducing injuries and property damage.”
Under the proposed rule, vehicles would have to have an AEB system that warns drivers of a potential crash at any speed greater than 6.2 miles per hour. The warning would be auditory and visual, and haptic warnings (like a vibration in the steering wheel) would be allowed.
Vehicles would automatically brake when a crash with a car or pedestrian is imminent over 6.2 mph and would be required to alert the driver when the system isn’t working, such as the sensors being covered by snow, sun glare or fog.
The systems would need to avoid crashes with other vehicles at speeds of up to 50 mph when the driver doesn’t react, Chief Counsel Ann Carlson said, and would need to avoid pedestrians at speeds up to 37 mph. NHTSA was required by Congress to develop the rule as a part of the infrastructure law that passed in 2021.
“With this proposal, we could change a high-speed crash from a deadly one to a lower-speed crash with minor injuries or just property damage,” Carlson said. She added that it will particularly help protect pedestrians and cyclists, who have been a “dark spot” in recent data, with deaths increasing 53% in the last decade.
All of the requirements would need to be phased in within four years of the rule being finalized; all car-crash braking requirements and pedestrian braking in daylight would be met within three years. Cars would be required to be able to detect pedestrians in the dark at high speeds after four years. The proposed rule will undergo a 60-day public comment period before finalization.
Many modern vehicles already come equipped with AEB systems, primarily using radar and camera sensors, though some companies are experimenting with lidar and thermal sensors. The rule does not specify which technology should be used, but is “exclusively performance-based” and up to manufacturers, said Markus Price, chief of NHTSA’s Visibility and Injury Prevention Division.
NHTSA began testing AEB systems as part of the New Car Assessment Program in 2010 and in 2016 secured a commitment from the manufacturers of 99% of U.S. light vehicles to include low-speed AEB in new vehicles by fall 2022. However, most deaths, injuries and property damage crashes happen at speeds above 25 miles per hour, which is higher than the speed automakers agreed to in the voluntary commitment, according to NHTSA.
“To our industry colleagues,” said Trottenberg, “we know we’re throwing a challenge out here, but we know that a lot of this technology is already pretty well developed and this is the time to take things to the next level.”
The agency said AEB technology is much more effective now than it was in 2016 and is ready to be required in all cars. Waiting for “market-driven adoption” would lead to more deaths and injuries that could be avoided, the rule says.
The Alliance for Automotive Innovation said in a statement that automakers have already developed and deployed AEB technology to detect vehicle crashes, warn the driver and automatically brake, and that the industry voluntarily committed to install AEB in nearly all vehicles by 2025.
“Several automakers are ahead of schedule on that commitment and experts predict it could prevent 42,000 incidents and 20,000 injuries annually,” spokesperson Brian Weiss said in a statement.
Shortly after the announcement, General Motors Co. issued a statement pledging to include AEB and four other safety features as standard equipment in 98% of its 2023 model year vehicles. The safety features include forward collision alerts, front pedestrian braking, lane-keep assistance and automatic high-beam control.
Consumer Reports, which advocates for vehicle safety, said Wednesday that the rule is “desperately needed.”
“This has been a long time coming, and auto safety advocates have been calling for this for years — but this proposal meets the moment,” said William Wallace, Consumer Reports’ associate director of safety policy. For a vehicle to be named a Consumer Reporters top pick, it must come with AEB and pedestrian detection as standard equipment.
“We’ve seen an increase each year in the number of vehicles that offer the technology, but ultimately these federal requirements would ensure every new car comes with this proven safety feature — without consumers being forced to pay extra for an expensive option package.”