The top American automobile regulator added two important advancements in braking technology to a list of recommended safety measures, likely paving the way for making these braking features mandatory in cars sold in the United States.

In a statement released Thursday, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) said that it would add crash imminent braking and dynamic brake support to its New Car Assessment Program (NCAP). The program is designed to help consumers make better choices about choosing safer cars.

Crash imminent braking, as the name implies, uses on-board sensors to detect when a crash is about to happen and then deploy the brakes if the driver has not already done so. Similarly, dynamic brake support increases the braking power if the driver hasn’t depressed the braking pedal sufficiently. These features are already available in some high-end cars.

According to NHTSA data, 33 percent “of all police-reported crashes in 2013 involved a rear-end collision with another vehicle at the start of the crash. The agency also found that a large number of drivers involved in rear-end crashes either did not apply the brakes at all or did not apply the brakes fully prior to the crash.”

"Adding [Automatic Emergency Braking] to our list of recommended features will encourage consumers to consider [Automatic Emergency Braking] as a factor in their new car purchase and encourage automakers to make this important innovation more widely available," NHTSA Administrator Mark Rosekind said in the statement. "NCAP is a critical tool for enhancing safety, so we are also looking at additional innovations to the program to capitalize on this exciting period of progress in safety technology."

The Los Angeles Times also noted that “it’s not unusual for advances that NHTSA promotes on this list to eventually be mandated. Backup cameras will be required on all U.S. vehicles starting in May 2018.”