Automatic braking to be standard on cars by 2022; MyCarDoesWhat applauds

MyCarDoesWhat, a vehicle safety education initiative from the National Safety Council and the University of Iowa, is applauding the Department of Transportation and the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety on the announcement that 20 automakers have committed to making automatic emergency braking a standard feature on new cars and light trucks by 2022.

NSC estimates show that 38,300 people died on U.S. roads last year – an 8 percent increase from 2014 and the largest year-over-year percent increase in 50 years. The move to make AEB standard will prevent hundreds of thousands of crashes and save lives.

“More than 100 deaths a day on our roadways is unacceptable,” Deborah A.P. Hersman, president and CEO of NSC, said in a March 17 press release. “Today, regulators and industry produced a new solution to an old problem – 2022 cannot come soon enough.”

MyCarDoesWhat offers easy-to-understand information on vehicle safety features – including lane-departure warnings and other collision-avoidance systems – and how they work.