NTSB calls for collision avoidance on all cars

Todd Spangler | Detroit Free Press

WASHINGTON — The National Transportation Safety Board has reiterated its recommendation that collision avoidance systems become standard equipment on all new passenger and commercial vehicles, suggesting they could prevent thousands of deaths and injuries each year.

Releasing a 60-page report, the NTSB shrugged off what could be an additional cost of thousands for new car buyers, with its chairman, Christopher Hart, saying, "You don't pay extra for your seat belt, and you shouldn't have to pay extra for technology that can help prevent a collision altogether.

The Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, an industry group, did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the Free Press, but has said in the past that the decision to purchase a vehicle with such a system should belong to consumers.

In the report Monday, the NTSB used data to reinforce that collision avoidance systems can prevent or lessen the severity of rear-end crashes, saying rear-end crashes kill some 1,700 people every year and injure some 500,000 more.

The severity of more than 80% of those collisions could be mitigated, the report said, if vehicles were equipped with collision avoidance systems. The NTSB said only four passenger vehicle models last year included a complete forward collision avoidance system as a standard feature.

Three years ago, the NTSB said the U.S. government should require automakers to include the latest collision-prevention technology as standard equipment on new cars and trucks, just one of 12 such recommendations made over the last two decades promoting forward collision avoidance systems.

"The progress on these recommendations ... has been very limited," the NTSB said in a news release, and the report "notes that a lack of incentives and limited public awareness has stunted the wide adoption of collision avoidance technology."

Forward collision avoidance systems include collision warning monitors which alert a driver that a crash is imminent and can assist the driver with braking or brake the vehicle for him or her. Other technologies include warnings that the car has veered out of its lane and electronic stability control.

"The promise of a next generation of safety improvements has been used too often to justify inaction," Hart said. "Because there will always be better technologies over the horizon, we must be careful to avoid letting perfection become the enemy of the good."

The NTSB recommended auto manufacturers make collision avoidance systems standard equipment beginning with collision warning systems, then add autonomous emergency braking systems once the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration completes standards for those technologies.

Hart also said the NTSB is recommending NHTSA rate the performance of each vehicle's collision avoidance systems and add those results to its New Car Assessment Programs' 5-star safety rating scale. The board also issued a safety alert for consumers encouragng them to consider vehicles with collision warnings and emergency braking functions.