ANCAP renews support for AEB

Low-speed autonomous emergency braking is already reducing the incidence of nose-to-tail crashes by as much as 38 per cent, claims the Australasian New Car Assessment Programme (ANCAP).

In a press release issued this week, ANCAP CEO Nicholas Clarke hailed the new active safety technology, based on the findings of a new study commissioned jointly by ANCAP, Australia's Department of Infrastructure & Regional Development and European safety testing organisation, Euro NCAP.

"Previous studies have predicted significant benefits from AEB technology in low-speed rear-end crashes and current research is now demonstrating its effectiveness," Clarke was quoted saying in the press release.

"ANCAP and the Department, together with Euro NCAP, established an expert group of representatives across governments, industry, consumer and insurance organisations to determine the effectiveness of AEB in reducing real-world crashes."

Combined statistics from five European countries and Australia revealed that the advent of AEB City – ANCAP's term for low-speed AEB – has already had a positive impact on road safety... and panel beating bills presented to insurance companies. The study estimates the improvement to be in the vicinity of 38 per cent.

In future, that figure can be expected to grow, as more cars come from the factory fitted with the new technology, which prompted Clarke to say: "These findings strongly support ANCAP's push to have manufacturers fit AEB as standard across all new cars."

AEB City is a type of autonomous emergency braking system, and typically works within a range of speeds from 30 to 50km/h. Bodies like ANCAP are placing a lot of faith in AEB and other electronically-regulated active safety systems. Such systems, which are a foretaste of a full autonomous driving future, have massive ramifications for road trauma around the world. Introducing these systems – and migrating eventually to full autonomous motoring – could be at least as far-reaching as Australia's adoption of mandatory seatbelt use in the 1970s.

There is, in fact, a very real chance that secondary (crash) safety – such as ANCAP and its associates around the world monitor – will be rendered irrelevant in decades to come. That is why ANCAP's focus has changed recently from exclusively testing crash safety to promoting active safety systems. It is jumping on the bandwagon before the horse bolts.

To date, however, ANCAP is yet to establish guidelines and testing procedures for these systems.

Nevertheless, that has not deterred ANCAP from voicing its disapproval of different car company brands in Australia for failing to offer the technology. Yet that has not actually distracted attention from ANCAP's own image problem. The organisation is grappling with an outdated test scale that has been fixed to set parameters that are now easily exceeded in most cases by even budget-brand, volume-selling cars.