NHTSA aims to cut 24K road injuries a year

WASHINGTON — For years, automakers have voluntarily equipped most new passenger cars and trucks with technology that can stop or slow a vehicle to prevent a collision. Now, U.S. auto safety regulators are proposing to require such systems — and demand that many improve.

NHTSA last week released a proposal to mandate automatic emergency braking, including pedestrian detection, on all new light-duty vehicles. The agency also set minimum performance standards, calling for systems that can prevent or mitigate frontal crashes at higher speeds and work effectively in the dark.

If the proposal is adopted, nearly all U.S. passenger cars and trucks would be required to have crash-avoidance technology that meets a number of performance standards three years after the rule is finalized. The agency's ultimate requirements would take effect the following year.

NHTSA projects the proposed rule, if finalized, would prevent at least 360 deaths and reduce injuries on U.S. roads by at least 24,000 annually. The agency also estimates it would cost automakers about $282 million a year across the entire vehicle fleet or about $82 per vehicle for each design cycle change.

"We know we're throwing a challenge out here," Polly Trottenberg, deputy secretary of the U.S. Transportation Department, said at a press conference last week. "But we know that a lot of this technology is already pretty well-developed, and this is a time to take things to the next level, to make this technology more universally deployed and more stringent."

The long-awaited proposal — a direct response to a provision in the 2021 infrastructure law — arrives as the technology becomes more common across all makes and models, not just luxury vehicles and higher trim levels.

At least 14 automakers have already met a 2016 voluntary commitment brokered by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety and NHTSA to equip 95 percent of their light-duty trucks and cars with automatic emergency braking. The commitment calls for automakers to meet the benchmark for models manufactured from Sept. 1, 2022, to Aug. 31, 2023.

It includes that systems perform well in 12 and 25 mph tests but not pedestrian recognition, according to Insurance Institute for Highway Safety spokesperson Joe Young.

The institute also is looking to increase the test speed it uses to evaluate automatic emergency braking systems.

"The updated tests will include higher speed scenarios up to 70 kph (43 mph)," Young said. "As expected, we're seeing a range of performance in the research tests at this higher speed, but some vehicles being sold today are able to detect and avoid striking stationary vehicles at that higher speed."

NHTSA's proposal would push automakers — and the technology's capabilities — even further.

"The technology now is mature enough for us to propose mandating its inclusion in all vehicles, but we're doing a whole lot more than that," said Ann Carlson, NHTSA's chief counsel. "In this rule-making, we're proposing to require that the systems be much more effective at much higher speeds."

Most crashes, injuries and fatalities occur at speeds above 25 mph, Carlson said, adding that the proposal "dramatically increases what many AEB systems currently do."

For speeds above 6.2 mph, the proposal would require a vehicle to provide a forward-collision warning and have an automatic emergency braking system that applies the brakes when a collision with the rear of another vehicle or a pedestrian is imminent.

Additionally, it would require the system to fully avoid other vehicles at speeds up to 50 mph when a driver fails to react. If a driver brakes, but not enough to avoid a collision, the system would have to fully avoid another vehicle at speeds up to 62 mph.

The proposal would require vehicles be able to stop and avoid pedestrians at speeds up to 37 mph.

Automatic emergency braking systems also must be able to perform at night, including detecting pedestrians in the dark and stopping the vehicle accordingly.

It is not clear how many systems available on vehicles today meet the agency's proposed performance standards.

"Most of them are not operating at the speeds that we're setting here, although some do," Carlson said. "Most do not meet the nighttime pedestrian AEB standards. A lot of the systems do not include pedestrian AEB at all, although increasingly we're seeing some penetration of the fleet."

In a statement to Automotive News, NHTSA said systems on today's vehicles offer a "range of performance."

"Our proposal carefully considers the data from NHTSA research, which demonstrates that vehicles can achieve the performance levels we are proposing," the agency said.

Hyundai Motor North America said in a statement that it supports NHTSA's proposal as "an important step to further reduce automotive crashes and injuries."

The automaker said its 2023 model year lineup comes with standard automatic emergency braking systems, including advanced pedestrian detection, but it did not comment on whether the technology meets all the performance requirements in the proposal.

Ford Motor Co., General Motors, Honda, Mazda and Mercedes-Benz said they were still reviewing NHTSA's proposal.

While automatic emergency braking, part of advanced driver-assistance systems, has the potential to save lives and reduce injuries by stopping or slowing a vehicle to prevent a crash, it has been problematic for some motorists.

In 2022, NHTSA opened investigations involving Tesla and Honda vehicles after receiving hundreds of complaints alleging unexpected activation of the system, characterized by some Tesla owners as "phantom braking."

Most systems primarily use camera- and radar-based sensors, though some emerging systems use lidar and thermal sensors, NHTSA said.

The agency's proposal does not mandate specific technology be used to meet the requirements, said Markus Price, chief of NHTSA's visibility and injury prevention division.

It does include two "false-positive" tests — driving over a steel trench plate and driving between two stopped vehicles in adjacent lanes — to mitigate incidents of unexpected braking. The proposal also would require a vehicle to detect system malfunctions such as sensor obstruction caused by snow, debris or sun glare and notify the driver of the malfunction.

"If a vehicle or software presents an unreasonable risk to safety," the agency said, "NHTSA will act under its defect authority to ensure the safety defect is recalled and remedied."