On October 16, 2015, NHTSA published a notice in the Federal Register (80 FR 62487) announcing that the agency has decided to grant a petition for rulemaking filed by the Truck Safety Coalition, the Center for Auto Safety, Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety, and Road Safe America to establish a safety standard to require automatic forward collision avoidance and mitigation systems on certain heavy vehicles. In granting the rulemaking petition, NHTSA cautions that this does not necessarily mean that NHTSA will issue a final rule. NHTSA indicates in the notice that it will test next generation AEB systems installed on trucks greater than 10,000 lbs. and less than or equal to 26,000 lbs. NHTSA states that the determination of whether to issue a rule will be made after studying the requested action and the various alternatives in the course of the rulemaking proceeding. The notice indicates that EU Commission Regulation No. 347/2012 already requires AEB systems with forward collision warning on most new heavy vehicles with some exceptions. NHTSA notes that the test scenarios, vehicle speeds, and performance criteria in EU Commission Regulation No. 347/2012 differ from the test criteria that NHTSA developed for its light vehicle automatic emergency braking evaluation that the agency plans to add to NCAP which has been the basis for the test criteria used to evaluate heavy vehicles. The notice states that NHTSA will consider the test criteria required by the European regulation, as it continues to develop its heavy vehicle test procedures and performance metrics.
Docket reference: NHTSA-2015-0099
NHTSA contact: Dr. Abigail Morgan, Office of Crash Avoidance Standards (202) 366-1810.