Boston.com
On November 2, the U.S. Department of Transportation announced it will consider automatic emergency braking technology as a criteria for its 5-Star Safety Rating System, overseen by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). The move applies to vehicles beginning in model year 2018.
In a statement, U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx explained the department’s rationale. “We are adding automatic emergency braking features to the 5-Star Rating System because crash-avoidance technology can save lives and should be widely available,” said Foxx in a release.
Foxx added that automatic emergency braking (AEB) systems “can substantially enhance safety, especially with the number of distracted drivers on the road.”
What is automatic emergency braking?
AEB systems rely on a radar or sensor system to determine if a rear-end crash is imminent and the driver isn’t doing enough to avoid the impact.
Russ Rader, senior vice president of communications for the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS), praised the ability of AEBs to protect motorists and passengers in a crash.
“Research is showing AEBs are preventing crashes,” Rader told Boston.com in a phone interview. “Even if not preventing crashes, they are reducing their severity.”
Automatic emergency braking systems can include “crash imminent” braking, which applies a vehicle’s brakes when the driver isn’t doing anything to prevent a collision. It can also amplify the vehicle’s brakes if the driver isn’t braking sufficiently.
Where did it come from?
Automatic braking technology started to emerge in the early 2000s as a means of boosting a driver’s braking efforts and tightening seat belts.
In 2002, Mercedes-Benz unveiled its “Pre-Safe” system at the Paris Motor Show. It could tighten seat belts, adjust seat positions, and lift folded head rests if a possible crash was detected.
In 2003, Toyota launched the first “pre-collision system” in Japan’s domestic market on the Harrier. This system also offered a seat belt-tightening system and “brake assist” technology (aka automatic brake amplification). That same year, Honda introduced the first “collision mitigation system” (CMS) on the now-defunct Inspire model that automatically applied a vehicle’s brakes if a potential crash was detected.
Acura was the first automaker to introduce a car with an automatic braking option to the US market with the 2006 RL model.
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