Three years ago some painstaking analysis of vehicle insurance claims in the UK and overseas led to a startling and unusually unequivocal conclusion.
When autonomous emergency braking (AEB) systems are fitted to cars, employing forward-facing cameras and radar or lidar (light detection and ranging) sensors to detect what is ahead of the vehicle and activate braking automatically if the driver fails to react swiftly enough, there is a dramatic fall in crash numbers.
Countless deaths and injuries are avoided as a result. The analysis was carried by Thatcham Research, a highly-regarded, independent, not-for-profit organisation funded mainly by insurance companies.
So impressed with the findings was vastly-experienced and straight-talking Thatcham director Matthew Avery that he was moved to describe AEB as “one of the most significant developments in vehicle safety since the advent of the seat-belt or airbag.” And his observations certainly were not confined to cars.
Noting with dismay that 90% of new light commercial vehicles at the time did not even have any form of AEB on their option lists, Avery described this sector of the vehicle market as “a black hole”. Thatcham started a campaign, Stop the Crash, with the aim of encouraging all concerned, especially the government and vehicle manufacturers, to do more to accelerate the take-up of AEB.
The campaign soon gained enthusiastic support from the likes of the Institute of Advanced Motorists (IAM), British Vehicle Rental and Leasing Association (BVRLA), and Commercial Vehicle Engineer magazine. BVRLA chief executive Gerry Keaney specifically urged the government to take the lead by insisting on AEB being fitted to all new vehicles run by all government departments and promoting wider uptake through the tax system and other financial incentives.
Sadly, three years on, we all seem to have been largely ignored. The latest road casualty statistics from the Department for Transport (DfT) suggest strongly that many lives have been lost as a consequence. There were 1,792 road deaths in Britain in 2016, 4% up on the 2015 figure and the highest annual total since 2011.
Volkswagen, to its credit, has been fitting AEB as standard to all its latest light commercial vehicles since June 2017. This van-maker’s own analysis of one year’s DfT road casualty statistics points to 2,496 “incidents” involving vans below 3.5 tonnes that could have been avoided if AEB had been fitted. This could have prevented as many as 348 deaths and serious injuries, it is calculated.
The Stop the Crash campaign evidently needs to be restarted. Auto-braking indolence, especially from government and most van-makers, continues to cost lives.
