 finalized an agreement among 40 countries to start requiring vehicles […] "'Pin It")
40 Countries Will Soon Implement an Automatic Braking Standard
Photo: sanjitbakshi
A few years back, 20 carmakers announced a commitment to include automatic braking as a standard feature by 2022. Now, many countries are pushing for standard automatic braking in new vehicles, starting in 2020.
Earlier this week, the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) finalized an agreement among 40 countries to start requiring vehicles to have automatic braking. It’s worth noting that China and the U.S. didn’t sign the agreement.
Details about the new agreement
Though the organization had already drafted the agreement on Feb. 1, it released it just this Tuesday after the document had been tweaked. The new regulation will mandate that vehicles include automatic braking technology.
Per the Washington Post, the new standard goes into effect starting next year and it will apply to only new vehicles. This means that vehicles already on the road won’t have to have the automatic braking technology installed to comply with the regulation.
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Goal to improve safety
An automatic braking system uses sensors to detect nearby obstacles, then automatically applies the brakes when it senses that the driver needs assistance to avoid a collision. While some technologies only slow the vehicle, others take over the braking 100 percent.
Per the UNECE, the goal of the agreement is to help reduce driving-related fatalities on an international level. For example, 9,500 roadway deaths occurred in the European bloc zone in 2016, as the organization confirmed. Once the new regulation goes into effect, UNECE claims that it should save more than 1,000 lives per year in this region alone.
We anticipate more news in the days ahead as we gradually move closer to the new standard’s implementation in 2020. Perhaps the U.S. and China will add their signatures to the agreement sometime before then.
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News Source: Washington Post
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