NHTSA Adding Two Technologies to NCAP
Secretary Anthony Foxx announced the agency is adding two automatic emergency braking systems to the recommended advanced safety features included under its New Car Assessment Program.
U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx recently announced that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration will add two cutting-edge automatic emergency braking systems to the recommended advanced safety features included under its New Car Assessment Program. The two systems are crash imminent braking (CIB) and dynamic brake support (DBS). A new NHTSA report that uses data from the agency's Fatal Accident Reporting System estimated such safety technologies have saved 613,501 lives since 1960.
"Today marks an enormous leap in the evolution of auto safety by encouraging adoption of new technologies to keep drivers and their passengers safe on our roads. I want this department, the entire automotive industry, and other innovators to keep raising the bar on safety like we are doing now," he said.
According to NHTSA data, one-third of all police-reported crashes in 2013 involved a rear-end collision with another vehicle at the start of the crash. Strikingly, the agency also found that many drivers involved in rear-end crashes either did not apply their brakes at all or did not apply them fully prior to the crash. CIB and DBS systems can intervene by automatically applying the vehicle's brakes or supplementing the driver's braking effort to mitigate the severity of the crash or to avoid it altogether.
According to DOT, their addition is the first step in a broader revision of NCAP that seeks to ensure the program continues to encourage consumers and automakers to develop and adopt advanced vehicle safety technologies. "Adding AEB to our list of recommended features will encourage consumers to consider AEB as a factor in their new car purchase and encourage automakers to make this important innovation more widely available," said NHTSA Administrator Mark Rosekind. "NCAP is a critical tool for enhancing safety, so we are also looking at additional innovations to the program to capitalize on this exciting period of progress in safety technology."