Thatcham Research has welcomed the European Commission announcement of proposals for the introduction of new road safety measures, some of the most significant in the past decade, and called on governments and car makers to not stall on making Autonomous Emergency Braking (AEB) mandatory on all cars and vans.

The so-called EU General Safety Regulation (GSR) has not been updated for 10 years and the new recommendations include versions of AEB and Intelligent Speed Assistance (ISA) to be applied in phases for new models from 2020.

Matthew Avery, Director of Research at Thatcham Research, comments, “Just as seatbelts are a legal requirement on all cars and vans, AEB should be as well. We have campaigned for many years for it to be standard on all vehicles, and with the latest AEB systems now capable of identifying pedestrians and cyclists, there is an opportunity to address the growing number of cyclist and pedestrian fatalities. We would hope that no blockers are put in the way by carmakers or lawmakers.”

AEB is a lifesaving crash avoidance system that Thatcham Research has campaigned to be standard for the past five years. It has been found that cars with AEB have a 38 per cent reduction in real-world rear-end crashes. Since 2014, AEB has been included in the Euro NCAP car safety test regime, which has helped to drive adoption by carmakers. In 2017, for example, 54% of all cars tested by Euro NCAP had AEB as standard. However, Thatcham is concerned carmakers have been slow to apply the technology to best selling models.