NHTSA plans to add pedestrian safety testing to the New Car Assessment Program, similar to testing done here by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. (Getty Images)
A few lines in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law that Congress passed last year required the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to publicize its plan for updating the New Car Assessment Program (NCAP). The NCAP has documented the safety of the light vehicle market since 1979, but has lately come under fire for inconsistent updates that put its measurements and requirements behind the programs in other countries. This month, NHTSA outlined the six ways it wants to create “a much broader safety strategy” for the U.S. NCAP.
In no particular order, the first recommendation is to add four advanced driver assistance technologies to the testing regime: Blind spot detection, blind spot intervention, automatic lane keeping, and pedestrian emergency automatic braking. All four represent an expanded approach to safety, this being the first time such recommendations consider the safety of people outside a vehicle.
In the same vein, the NHTSA wants to look at tech that attempts to reduce the chance of a crash or injury before a driver has pulled out of his parking spot. One of these is already spreading among new cars, rear seat child reminders. Others are far more contentious and include alcohol detection devices, seatbelt interlocks, driver monitoring systems, and intelligent speed assist. That last one, for instance, makes the vehicle aware of a speed limit and can be programmed to prohibit the vehicle from exceeding the posted limit. It’s already a thing in Europe, but can be overridden.
The agency also wants to find ways to bolster current testing protocols for the driver assistance technologies it already measures, such as forward collision warning and lane departure warning.
After that, the agency’s looking for a way to put a useful crash avoidance rating on a new vehicle’s window sticker. The idea is to provide overall support for reducing crashes from the moment of researching a vehicle through to post-crash care with “safer people, safer roads, safer vehicles, safer speeds.”
Finally, there’s the proposal of a 10-year-road map of NCAP updates that keeps the NHTSA moving with vehicle technology, and could provide OEMs with stability about where regulations are going and when. Last year, the OEM organization the Alliance for Automotive Innovation spoke out about the NCAP: “Given the significant lead time necessary to implement new safety technology or re-engineer existing performance, a more predictable program is needed to maximize the potential benefits of NCAP.” For instance, all those automakers with all those fancy headlights that couldn’t be sold here would have been happy to know years ago that 2022 would get the nod.
But this is really about cutting down on traffic fatalities that keep going up. The early estimate for road deaths in the first nine months of 2021 is 31,720, which is 12% higher than in 2020, the largest percentage increase since the Fatality Analysis Reporting System began in 1975.
These new proposals will be allied with the first-ever National Roadway Safety Strategy released by the U.S. Department of Transportation in January, itself another strategy to reduce injuries and deaths in vehicle crashes. Concerned citizens can read the full text of the NHTSA’s proposals, and then take advantage of the 60-day comment period at Regulations.gov.
Keyword: NHTSA proposes six ways to improve New Car Assessment Program