The US Department of Transportation’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) finalized a new Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard that will make automatic emergency braking (AEB), including pedestrian AEB, standard on all passenger cars and light trucks by September 2029.

NHTSA projects that this new standard, FMVSS No. 127, will save at least 360 lives a year and prevent at least 24,000 injuries annually. AEB systems use sensors to detect when a vehicle is close to crashing into a vehicle or pedestrian in front and automatically applies the brakes if the driver has not. Pedestrian AEB technology will detect a pedestrian in both daylight and in darker conditions at night.

The new standard requires all cars be able to stop and avoid contact with a vehicle in front of them up to 62 miles per hour and that the systems must detect pedestrians in both daylight and darkness. In addition, the standard requires that the system apply the brakes automatically up to 90 mph when a collision with a lead vehicle is imminent, and up to 45 mph when a pedestrian is detected.

The standard fulfills a provision in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to establish minimum performance standards requiring that all passenger vehicles be equipped with AEB. This standard also advances the Department’s National Roadway Safety Strategy, which was launched in January 2022 to address the national crisis in traffic fatalities and serious injuries. The National Roadway Safety Strategy adopts the safe system approach and builds multiple layers of protection with safer roads, safer people, safer vehicles, safer speeds and better post-crash care. As part of the safe system approach, this new vehicle safety standard highlights safer vehicles and USDOT’s effort to expand vehicle systems and features to help prevent crashes.

This final rule applies to nearly all US light vehicles (gross vehicle weight rating of 10,000 pounds or less). A Final Regulatory Impact Analysis that presents the benefits and costs associated with the standard is included in the Final Rule.

In June 2023, NHTSA and the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration announced a separate notice of proposed rulemaking that would require heavy vehicles, including tractor trailers, to have AEB, which the agencies are in the process of finalizing.