The U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has proposed making automatic emergency braking (AEB) systems mandatory in new vehicles, an initiative to which automakers voluntarily committed in 2016 as a standard feature in all new cars and trucks starting in 2022, but which at this point, only Tesla and Volvo have incorporated as standard across their entire lineup.
The proposed systems, which use radar, LiDAR, cameras, sensors or combinations thereof, would be mandatorily incorporated into all cars, SUVs and large vans, combined with autonomous braking systems capable of automatically stopping the vehicle and avoiding hitting pedestrians at speeds of up to 60kmh, as well as braking and coming to a complete stop to avoid colliding with stopped or slow moving vehicles at speeds of up to 100kmh, in both cases with night-time capability. The reason for trying to bring forward the implementation of these systems is in the number of accidents, which have increased significantly in the country due to the increasing predominance of heavier SUV-type vehicles, which have longer stopping times, and are much more dangerous for pedestrians when they hit them.
In 2019, 36,096 people died in the United States in traffic accidents. In 2022, that figure rose to nearly 43,000 people, a slight decrease from 2021, but a 31% increase from 2014 levels. The number had been declining until about a decade ago, at which point brands began to offer more and more SUVs, a supersizing that has proved deadly for both the environment and pedestrians. As many as 3,500 pedestrians were killed in the first half of 2022, the highest number in the last 40 years. When drivers protect themselves by adopting a larger vehicle size, the consequences are obvious.
In other countries, such as Japan, autonomous braking systems have been mandatory in new vehicles since 2021, and a very high percentage of all those in circulation incorporate some type of system with this functionality, although not all still meet the specifications set out in the standard. In the European Union, the law required an advanced emergency braking system in some new vehicles above a certain weight by May 2022, and in all new vehicles by May 2024. In India, a country with a very high number of road accidents and almost 200,000 casualties per year, these “brakes with brains” type systems are mandatory in new vehicles from last year.
Increasingly, the idea is to supplement the human driver with systems capable of acting when distractions or unforeseen situations occur. The way they work, warning first with a shrill beep when a dangerous situation is detected and, after that warning, applying the brakes, often with a force far greater than the driver could apply, means that they are by no means simple: they generate a certain number of false alarms when, for example, the vehicle approaches another that is parked and encroaching on the traffic lane, a very common situation in narrow streets, and in some other driving circumstances. But although they generate a certain number of scares for the driver, the fact that they work when the alarm occurs for genuine reasons makes them fully justified.
The numbers of accident victims every year make it clear that driving should cease to be a human activity: you may love driving, but it is clear that in the aggregate, we are very bad at it. Until all vehicles are fully autonomous and carry people who have no role in their operation, it seems clear that the more systems that make it so that we don’t have to rely on ourselves, the better.
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This post was previously published on Enrique Dans’ blog.
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