mmarshall

Well, Big Brother is hitting us with another new safety-regulation, just announced today, although I can't really say I disagree with it, and many new vehicles, of course, already have it as either standard or optional.....automatic emergency-braking when an object is detected. This must be implemented, by 2029, for all new vehicles in the American market.


https://www.washingtonpost.com/trans...location=alert

TRANSPORTATION

Advanced automatic braking systems to be standard on new cars by 2029

New federal car safety rules would require cars to have technology to avoid hitting pedestrians and other vehicles, even at high speeds

By Ian Duncan

April 29, 2024 at 7:00 p.m. EDT

Federal safety standards issued Monday will require new cars to have automatic emergency brakes that can bring them to a complete stop without crashing or hitting pedestrians even at high speeds, saving hundreds of lives a year.

Automakers will have until the fall of 2029 to comply, but officials at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said they expect the industry to be able to deploy the systems ahead of the deadline.

“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,” NHTSA Deputy Administrator Sophie Shulman said in a statement. “In fact, this technology is now so advanced that we’re requiring these systems to be even more effective at higher speeds and to detect pedestrians.”



The rules are one of the most significant changes to car safety standards in years and are being issued in the midst of a road safety crisis that saw 41,000 people killed in 2023. Automakers have been installing a lower-speed version of automatic emergency brakes in almost their entire fleet under a deal struck during the Obama administration. But the new regulations are aimed at ensuring far higher performing systems become the standard, and have faced objections from the industry.

Automatic emergency brakes rely on sensors in the vehicle to detect when a crash is imminent and either take over the job of applying the brakes entirely or help a driver safely come to a stop. The rules call for the systems to be able to bring a vehicle traveling at up to 62 mph to a complete stop without causing a collision. They should also be able to apply the brakes if a pedestrian is detected at speeds of up to 45 mph.

NHTSA estimates the rules will prevent 362 road deaths per year and reduce the severity of 24,321 injuries. The agency has said most vehicles could comply with the standards through updates to their software.



Cathy Chase, the president of Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety, said the new rules were a “major victory for all consumers and public safety.”

But the auto industry expressed concerns with key parts of the rule after it was proposed last year, arguing it would be impractical in the short term to require that the systems could avoid crashes altogether.

The Alliance for Automotive Innovation, an association of automakers, urged NHTSA to consider an alternative involving reductions in speed in some cases. “Significant hardware and software changes will be needed to achieve a level of performance that no production vehicle can currently achieve,” the organization said last year.

The final version of the rules gives the industry an additional year to comply compared with NHTSA’s original proposal, but maintains the same performance requirements.

New test results from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, a research group, suggest the systems will have to improve in coming years to meet the federal rules. The institute said last week it had tested crash avoidance systems on 10 small SUVs at speeds of up to 43 mph, finding that many failed to stop in time to avoid a crash in the most difficult test scenarios.



Just one vehicle, the Subaru Forester, earned a rating of “good” from the organization because it was able to avoid a car ahead of it and dramatically slow down for a motorcycle. The Honda CR-V, rated “acceptable,” avoided the car but struggled to brake for the motorcycle at the highest speed in the test.

The new braking rules were required as part of the 2021 infrastructure law, which pushed NHTSA to use new technology to tackle road deaths. The agency is also exploring a requirement that vehicles be equipped with technology to block drunken driving. The work is in its early stages, but supporters say alcohol detection technology could save 10,000 lives per year.

NHTSA is also working with the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, a truck safety agency, to require automatic brakes on heavy-duty vehicles.

Striker223

And the price goes up more and more and more.....

mmarshall

Three things. First, I agree that it will probably jack up some new-vehicle prices, but many vehicles already have this technology now....so that will be a somewhat moot point. Second, unlike many other self-driving systems, automatic emergency braking actually WORKS. Third, there is no price, a least in monetary terms, that can be put on saving human lives and injuries.

Striker223

No it really doesn't work......misses poles, bikes, other cars sometimes, and WILL randomly apply brakes hard when you are going 70. Better systems do it less but you can be assured that cheap cars with "compliance" tier systems will have a hilariously high amount of false positives or just outright never work reliably, think backup cam post mandate in a kia or nissan. It's there.....barely.

jwong77

I hated this feature on our RX350, or at least the reverse version of it, it constantly would alarm about something that was a good distance away that wasn't even going to effect our ability to back out.

I also hate this feature on Model Y, it always thinks I'm about to plow into random parked cars on the side of the street. This is why I enjoy driving my old cars, they can't do this. They may not always work perfectly, but they don't do this kind of thing.

lalexusgs

They should better work on enforcing the technology blocking cell phone texting in moving vehicles. Would save way more lifes and prevent way more accidents than emergency braking.

tex2670

cell companies have better lobbyists

Trackruner

I wish they would mandate headlights that default to auto each time you start the car over this. The amount of people driving around at night with no lights is way too high.

RNM GS3

The Fed should require ANNUAL testing to operate a motor vehicle.

All this tech just encourages ppl to not pay attention.

Unfortunately its all about the $$$

4TehNguyen

iTrader: (1)

Govt: add all these requirements to the car
Also Govt: what do you mean you cant get 50mpg like we asked

tex2670

I agree 100% with this. It's insane.

tex2670

It's emergency braking, not semi-autonomous driving. Who on earth decides they don't need to pay attention because of emergency braking?

jwong77

Such a simple change, yet this would make a huge impact.

Striker223

Oh you would be stunned what people do, I had a customer who used the auto braking to slow down when approaching cars.

arentz07

New Camrys have come standard with this emergency braking feature for a few years now. It shouldn't be an issue for automakers to include it on every model. I don't see a problem here.

By the time of the mandate, I would be surprised if almost all new cars already don't come with it. There is usually some kind of feature trickle-down as automakers try to out-feature each other. I guess you could say the mandate is somewhat unnecessary in that regard.