Five Stars for ADAS?
On March 2, 2022, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) released a Request for Comment (RFC) seeking public input on its proposed changes to the New Car Assessment Program (NCAP). Among other things, the proposed changes would add four more Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) technologies to NCAP, and strengthen testing procedures and performance criteria for the ADAS technologies already included in the program. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg described these changes as “important” to “help save lives on our roadways by ensuring that consumers have the information they need about the latest safety technologies when they buy a new vehicle.”
NHTSA established NCAP in 1978 in response to Title II of the Motor Vehicle Information and Cost Savings Act of 1972, which authorized “a comprehensive study and investigation of the methods for determining” crashworthiness and other characteristics of passenger vehicles. Generally, the purpose of NCAP is to provide information to consumers about the crashworthiness of new vehicles to assist in purchasing decisions, as well as to encourage car manufacturers to focus on safety improvements and compete with each other, improving the overall safety of new vehicles. NCAP is probably best known for its crash test dummies (going back to 1979) and its five-star rating system (going back to 1994).
ADAS features were first introduced to the NCAP in 2008 with forward collision warning, lane departure warning, and electronic stability control. Automatic emergency braking technology, crash imminent braking, and dynamic braking support were later added in 2018.
In the 2022 RFC, NHTSA acknowledges that ADAS features are continuing to develop and will need to be regulated, while also being mindful of potential development barriers. The four new features NHTSA has proposed adding to NCAP are blind spot detection, blind spot intervention, lane keeping support, and pedestrian automatic emergency braking.
Blind Spot Warning: Blind spot warnings alert drivers of other vehicles approaching in an adjacent lane in the driver’s blind spot. Blind spot warning was initially proposed to be added to the NCAP program in 2015, along with blind spot intervention, but they did not make the cut. Now, “NHTSA believes there is merit to including blind spot technologies in NCAP,” since the combined features have a very high consumer acceptance rate and are trusted by most consumers to potentially aid in crash avoidance.
Blind Spot Intervention: Blind spot intervention actively intervenes to avoid a collision with another vehicle when the blind spot warning is ignored by the driver. NHTSA is not aware of any “effectiveness studies” for blind spot intervention, but the agency now believes that the intervening feature is more effective in crash prevention than just warnings.
Lane Keeping Support: Like blind spot intervention, lane keeping support actively intervenes with the driver. A lane keeping support system will guide a vehicle that is drifting into another lane by steering the vehicle back into the lane when the driver has not turned on the turn signal. Most owners of vehicles that include lane keep support have reported back high satisfaction and trust with the technology. While NHTSA did not propose the potential addition of lane keep support in the NCAP program in 2015 like it did with blind spot warning and blind spot intervention, it was suggested by many who commented on the notice in 2015.
Pedestrian Automatic Emergency Braking: Similar to automatic emergency braking (AEB), pedestrian automatic emergency braking (PAEB) will warn a driver and actively apply brakes when a pedestrian is picked up by one of the vehicle sensors or cameras to avoid a collision. This technology “may use a combination of cameras, radar, lidar and/or thermal imaging sensors.”
NHTSA has found that each of these technologies meets NCAP’s already-established criteria: “(1) the technology addresses a safety need; (2) system designs exist that can mitigate the safety problem; (3) the technology provides the potential for safety benefits; and (4) a performance-based objective test procedure exists that can assess system performance.”
If you have purchased a new car, you no doubt have seen NCAP’s star rating for crashworthiness included on marketing collateral or on the car’s window sticker (although you may not know that the window sticker is formally known as a Monroney label or that it is federally mandated). In its proposed changes, NHTSA suggests introducing a new rating system specific to ADAS technologies, separate and apart from the well-known five-star system.
Currently, ratings for ADAS features are communicated via the NHTSA website, where a check mark designates whether an ADAS technology is recommended by NHTSA and meets NCAP’s performance specifications. In the RFC, the Administration suggests a more formal rating system—using the well-known stars, or points, or medals (bronze, silver, gold)—noting:
as more emerging ADAS technologies are available in the market, the Agency believes that a rating mechanism for these systems would be more beneficial for consumers because it could better distinguish the technologies, including different levels of system performance and the technologies’ life-saving potential, rather than simply listing how many technologies a given vehicle is equipped with that meet NCAP’s system performance requirements.
NHTSA acknowledges that a separate rating system for ADAS systems may be confusing for car buyers, and actually may have the counter-productive effect of discouraging the purchase of cars equipped with safety-enhancing ADAS features.
Wherever NHTSA lands on the changes to NCAP, we view the proposals as a positive step in the direction of better, clearer, and more uniform standards for emerging mobility technology—all in the name of safety. For more thoughts and reactions, you can browse the more than 4,000 comments submitted in response to NHTSA’s RFC here.
Copyright Nelson Niehaus LLC
The opinions expressed in this blog are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Firm, its clients, or any of its or their respective affiliates. This blog post is for general information purposes and is not intended to be and should not be taken as legal advice.