Automatic emergency braking (AEB) systems that brake a car in order to prevent an accident and forward collision warning systems that sound an alarm to alert a driver to stop can reduce the number of rear-end collisions by half.
That’s the conclusion of not one but two major studies released this week.
Vehicles With Automatic Emergency Braking Have 49% Fewer Crashes
The Partnership for Analytics Research in Traffic Safety (PARTS) is a coalition of automakers and the federal government’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. PARTS studied automaker data from approximately 47 million vehicles to reach its conclusion. The group analyzed 93 different vehicles from model years 2015 to 2020.
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The group found that the combination of AEB and forward collision warning reduced the incidence of collisions by about half. Vehicles equipped with such systems had 49% fewer front-to-back crashes than those without.
Even when the systems don’t prevent a crash, they can make it less severe. The study found a 53% reduction in injuries when cars were equipped with both systems.
The group also said AEB systems “continues to perform well in all conditions, even when roadway, weather, and lighting conditions are not ideal.”
That last point contradicts other recent studies, which have found such systems don’t detect pedestrians reliably at night.
PARTS also studied lane-keeping assistance, which helps center a car in its lane, and lane-departure warning, which alerts drivers if their car begins to drift out of its lane. Those systems “reduced all single-vehicle road-departure crashes by 8% and injury single-vehicle road-departure crashes by 7%.”
Second Study: Automatic Braking Works in Trucks
A second study found similar results in pickup trucks.
A consortium of insurance companies funds its own safety lab, the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS). The IIHS “examined police-reported crashes from 25 states for 2017-20 and calculated the rate at which pickups rear-ended other vehicles.”
They found a 43% reduction in crashes and a 42% reduction in injuries when trucks carried AEB systems. However, the IIHS warns the systems are relatively rare in pickups.
AEB was “only standard on 5 percent of the registered pickups on U.S. roads in 2021,” the IIHS said. That compares with 10% of cars and 18% of SUVs. “The feature was optional on 10 percent of pickups, 15 percent of cars and 22 percent of SUVs.”
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