The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS), in collaboration with the Highway Loss Data Institute (HLDI), has announced that it has petitioned federal regulators for new rules that will require automakers to equip all new vehicles with automatic emergency braking systems that are capable of detecting and avoiding pedestrians at night, as well as during the day.
At present, the majority of automatic emergency braking systems function well during the day, but suffer significant performance losses at night. According to the IIHS, more than a third of fatal pedestrian crashes occur at night on unlit roads.
While the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) will propose new rules that would require automatic emergency braking systems on new passenger vehicles by 2024, it’s unclear at this time what performance standards will be in place. As such, the IIHS will urge that the systems incorporate functionality for dark roads, as well as daytime driving.
As GM Authority covered in February, the IIHS is now developing a dedicated nighttime test for automatic emergency braking systems, and will plan on publishing the first official pedestrian crash prevention ratings later in the year.
Per an IIHS analysis, automatic emergency braking systems reduce pedestrian collisions by as much as 30 percent, as compared to vehicles without such systems. However, most systems rely on visual cameras to detect potential collisions, thus dramatically reducing the efficacy of such systems when traveling at night on an unlit road.
In a recent evaluation, the IIHS tested the efficacy of the automatic emergency braking systems for eight small crossovers. Test vehicles included the 2019 Subaru Forester, 2019 Volvo XC40, 2020 Honda CR-V, 2020 Hyundai Venue, 2021 Chevy Trailblazer, 2021 Ford Bronco Sport, 2021 Toyota C-HR, and 2022 Volkswagen Taos, while the systems in place incorporated either a single camera, dual cameras, a single camera and radar, or radar only.
According to the IIHS, the system efficacy declined in the dark, with the exception of those systems that relied entirely on radar, with the tradeoff being less effective performance for radar-only systems when operating during the day.
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Comments
how many “Chips” will that take….can’t even have enough chips for heated seats and we are worried about adding new features
That is because human beings aren’t perfect and do make mistakes! It is sad when a life is lost because of that mistake!
They won’t be happy until they regulate all the car companies out if business.
More money, a decent truck will be $65 thousand soon. More mandates