NHTSA Considers Requiring New Advanced Safety Features in Cars

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration will consider new requirements for advanced safety features in new cars. The first is a system that warns drivers when their vehicle is leaving its lane, while the second is a system that automatically brakes the car before an impending crash.

Crash-imminent braking and lane departure warning systems could become the new standard as soon as 2011. Safety advocates say both systems could dramatically reduce the 40,000 traffic deaths and 2.5 million injuries each year. Cars.com has tested both types of systems in cars from Volvo and Infiniti. The systems aren’t cheap, costing upward of $2,000 as options.

Frontal crashes account for one in six road fatalities, or about 7,200 deaths per year, according to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. Automatic braking could potentially save many of those lives, while lane departure warning systems could positively affect the outcomes of the 483,000 crashes per year that occur when drivers are distracted or fall asleep behind the wheel. IIHS says about 10,000 people die each year when vehicles leave their lanes or the road.

The question is one of cost-effectiveness. Mandating the new systems could be expensive for automakers, who will pass the cost on to consumers, but the two systems have become a major part of NHTSA’s revamped New Car Assessment Program, which will begin with the 2011 model year. The program will performance-test those two systems.

NHTSA May Impose More Safety Features (Detroit News)

Comments

I see these types of systems coming main stream but there not quite cheap yet. I worry about it being another electronic gizmo one would have to worry about breaking in a car. Manufactures like to kill you price wise for these safety extras to make extraaaa profit. Maybe making it mandatory will force automakers to figure out how to make it inexpensive in cars.

I wanted to buy these systems for my 2010 Prius but I would have had to add $10,000 to the purchase price ... not for the systems but the leather seats, LED headlights, 17" wheels and other 'eye candy.' I would have happily bought my downscale Prius to have added adaptive cruise control with accident avoidance and lane following. That would have been an easy decision.

Regulations like this drives the cost of these systems down and makes them available in the lower end models. This is exactly what I want to see along with pedestrian safe hoods, bumpers and quarter panels. I got those for free.

Bob Wilson

How about putting harsher standards when passing those incompetent drivers' driving tests?