collision warning

Four highway safety groups have urged the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) to introduce a safety regulation mandating the use of forward collision avoidance and mitigation braking systems on commercial motor vehicles such as large trucks and buses.

The groups include Truck Safety Coalition, the Center for Auto Safety, Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety (Advocates), and Road Safe America.

The proposed regulation will require trucks and buses with a gross vehicle weight rating of 10,000lb or more to be equipped with forward collision avoidance and mitigation braking (F-CAM) systems.

The F-CAM systems are said to avoid more than 2,500 crashes a year and future generation systems are estimated to prevent over 6,300 crashes.

Advocates senior vice-president Henry Jasny said: "The safety technology is available to reduce the carnage on America’s roads resulting from rear-end crashes by large trucks.

"The NHTSA can take action to improve safety and reduce preventable losses."

"The NHTSA can take action to improve safety and reduce preventable losses by requiring F-CAM technology on all large commercial motor vehicles."

Using radar and sensors, the F-CAM technology alerts the driver to apply brakes in case of a possible crash.

A forward collision warning (FCW) incorporated in the F-CAM alerts a driver to apply brake and a collision mitigation braking (CMB) system automatically applies the brakes if the system determines that a crash is about to occur.

According to data from the US Department of Transportation, 3,921 people were killed and 104,000 people injured in crashes involving large trucks in 2012 and 333,000 large trucks were involved in traffic crashes.

The Truck Safety Coalition said that crashes involving commercial motor vehicles are estimated to cost more than $99bn to society.

Image: Collision warning with brake support on the 2009 Lincoln MKS. Photo: courtesy of Ford Motor Company USA.