Regulations

NHTSA to recommend additional emergency braking systems

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) plans to add two automatic emergency braking (AEB) systems to the recommended advanced safety features included under its New Car Assessment Program (NCAP).

The two automatic emergency braking systems – crash imminent braking (CIB) and dynamic brake support (DBS) – are designed to help drivers avoid, or mitigate the severity of, rear-end crashes. CIB systems provide automatic braking when forward-looking sensors indicate that a crash is imminent and the driver has not braked, whereas DBS systems provide supplemental braking when sensors determine that driver-applied braking is insufficient to avoid an imminent crash.

According to NHTSA data, one-third 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. CIB and DBS systems can intervene by automatically applying the vehicle’s brakes or supplementing the driver’s braking effort to mitigate the severity of the crash or to avoid it altogether.

AEB systems, vehicle-to-vehicle communications (V2V) – that share information between nearby vehicles to potentially warn drivers about dangerous situations – and automated vehicle technologies, promise to save more lives and prevent more crashes, building upon crashworthiness and crash avoidance technologies in vehicles today.

NHTSA’s action also marks the first step in a broader revision of NCAP and seeks to ensure the program continues to encourage both consumers and automakers to develop and adopt advanced vehicle safety technologies.

In 2013, NHTSA requested public comment on how the agency should update NCAP. Positive comments about the potential benefit of AEB technology led to the latest recommendation.

The NCAP checklist gives consumers a quick and easy way to compare the availability of safety features across models. Current recommended advanced technology features that also help drivers avoid or mitigate crashes are forward collision warning, lane departure warning, and rearview video systems. www.nhtsa.gov; www.safercar.gov

NHTSA orders Takata to preserve defective air bag inflators

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) issued an order Feb. 25, 2015, requiring Takata to preserve all air bag inflators removed through recalls as evidence for both NHTSA’s investigation and private litigation cases.

NHTSA will upgrade the Takata investigation to an engineering analysis, a formal step in the agency’s defect investigation process used in determining the actual cause of the air bag failures and the appropriateness of remedies. The agency will also determine whether Takata’s refusal to notify the agency of a safety defect violates federal safety laws or regulations.

Since 2008, automakers have recalled about 17 million vehicles with Takata air bags that can rupture when they deploy, producing fragments that can kill or seriously injure occupants. In 2014, five automakers – BMW, Chrysler, Ford, Honda, and Mazda – launched national recalls at NHTSA’s urging for defective driver-side air bags. Those five, plus General Motors, Mitsubishi, Nissan, Subaru, and Toyota, are recalling vehicles for defective passenger-side air bags in areas of consistently high absolute humidity, which is believed to be a factor in the ruptures.

Under NHTSA oversight, Takata is testing air bag inflators to determine the scope of the defect and to search for the root cause. Testing of thousands of air bags to date has not produced any evidence that the passenger-side defect extends outside the high-humidity zone. Automakers have announced plans to form a testing consortium, and private plaintiffs have sought access to inflators in federal court to conduct their own tests.

The order prohibits Takata from destroying or damaging any inflators except as is necessary to conduct testing, and it requires Takata to set aside 10% of recalled inflators and make them available to private plaintiffs for testing.

Plaintiffs or automakers who seek access to inflators must grant NHTSA access to testing data, and NHTSA retains the ability to collect inflators for its own testing.

Also, NHTSA on Feb. 20, 2015, began levying $14,000 a day in civil penalties against Takata for failure to provide more information about more than 2.5 million pages of documents it has produced under NHTSA orders. www.nhtsa.gov

FHWA awards grant to develop connected vehicle certification

The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) has awarded a grant to telematics solutions and embedded engineering services provider Danlaw Inc. to develop the next stage certification environment for connected vehicle technology. The grant is aimed at accelerating development of a certification environment for testing and validating connected vehicles that use the dedicated short range communication (DSRC) standard, IEEE 802.11p.

Danlaw will target the development of standardized certification techniques, tools, and the associated test environment for certification of the communication protocol, vehicle interface, and environmental interactions associated with DSRC-based connected devices. Certification testing ensures future DSRC-based devices communicate accurately and with high reliability to realize the potential for safety enhancement. www.danlawinc.com

Texas to consider texting/driving ban

For the third consecutive session, Texas lawmakers have submitted legislation to ban texting while driving. A similar measure passed in 2011 but was vetoed by then-Gov. Rick Perry. A measure failed to clear both the House and Senate in 2013.

Authored by Rep. Tom Craddick, R-Midland, H.B. 80 would ban manually entering text into a wireless device, leaving open the possibility of voice-activated texting systems. The bill would also require the state to alter drivers’ tests to make sure drivers seeking new licenses are aware of the dangers of texting. Craddick’s bill has cleared the state’s Transportation Committee and has been set for public hearings.

Across the country, 44 states have banned texting while driving, and several of the remaining areas are considering bans. www.house.state.tx.us