Today the U.S. Department of Transportation’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) and the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) announced that 20 major automakers signed a commitment to make Automatic Emergency Braking and Forward Collision Warning standard on vehicles starting 2022. Volvo has had Automatic Emergency Braking standard since 2014, with Forward Collision Warning becoming standard on all new Volvos by 2018, well ahead of the agreement’s schedule.
Interior Large Animal Detection © Zhejiang Geely Holding Group Co., Ltd
“Automatic Emergency Braking is a critical part of our Vision 2020, which states that no one should be killed or seriously injured in a new Volvo by the year 2020,” said Lex Kerssemakers, President & CEO of Volvo Car USA, “thousands of Volvo owners have already realized the benefits of this technology.”
In January 2016, a report conducted by IIHS showed that City Safety, which includes Volvo’s Automatic Emergency Braking function, reduced rear-end collisions by 41% and injuries to occupants by 47%.
Volvo continues to develop new safety technologies and make them standard in order to achieve the company’s Vision 2020. Recent technologies include:
- Large Animal Detection with Automatic Braking, a world first safety innovation, will warn the driver about large animals entering the roadway and stop the vehicle to avoid an accident. This technology will be on the 2017 S90 and XC90
- Cyclist and Pedestrian with Automatic Braking provides advanced warning and automatic braking when cyclists or pedestrians are present in the vehicle’s lane of travel. This feature is available on all Volvo models.
- Intersection Auto Brake debuted with the 2016 XC90 and is another world-first safety technology that prevents a Volvo driver from steering into oncoming traffic at an intersection via automatic braking.
