The Proposed Rule

The proposed rule, announced by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), aims to require all new vehicles to be equipped with advanced emergency braking systems by 2026. The system would use a combination of cameras, sensors, and radar to detect potential collisions and automatically apply the brakes to prevent or mitigate the impact.

The new standard, which was finalized in December 2022, aims to reduce the number of fatal crashes on US roads.

The Need for Automatic Emergency Braking Systems

The need for automatic emergency braking systems is driven by the alarming rate of fatal crashes on US roads. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), there were over 38,000 fatalities in motor vehicle crashes in the United States in 2020. This number has been steadily increasing over the years, with a 10% increase in fatalities from 2019 to 2020.

However, when the new rules were implemented, the same models were only able to avoid 90% of forward collisions at the same speeds.

The New Safety Feature: Automatic Emergency Braking

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has proposed a new rule requiring all new vehicles to be equipped with an automatic emergency braking system (AEB) by 2026.