Crash Avoidance Technology Underused

In the Star Tribune newspaper this past Thanksgiving day was an article about crash avoidance technology in automobiles and the fact that auto manufacturers have not made it standard equipment yet, despite overwhelming evidence that it is cheap and incredibly effective.

The National Traffic Safety Board reports that there was a 7.2% increase in highway deaths in 2015. The agency was extremely frustrated by this and is "calling for action to reduce fatalities on multiple fronts." This includes preventing distractions such as smart phone use, decreasing driving while impaired and reducing fatigue-related crash. They feel that a unifying solution that addresses at least a portion of all of these issues is crash avoidance technology.

The most basic of these is a system which senses an object ahead of the vehicle and if the driver doesn't apply the brakes, the system takes over to prevent a rear end crash. This type of technology costs about $100 per vehicle to the manufacturer. One third of reported crashes began with a rear end collision according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Earlier this year that agency reach an agreement with auto manufacturers to install these automatic braking system on all cars by 2022. It's now optional on a lot of vehicles in the higher end category, but the agency feels that every vehicle should have these.