NHTSA to measure pedestrian safety to combat rising fatalities

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration proposed updates to its New Car Assessment Program to include pedestrian crashworthiness tests.

Aimed at decreasing pedestrian fatalities, the updates would add tests to measure pedestrian protection in a vehicle collision and the ability of advanced driver-assistance systems to prevent such a collision, according to NHTSA's request for public comment issued Monday.

Pedestrian deaths have been on the rise in the U.S. in recent years, a trend blamed on worsening driving behaviors since the pandemic. Drivers struck and killed 3,434 people in the first six months of 2022, the most recent data available. That amounted to an average of 19 fatalities per day. The total represented an increase of 168 deaths from the same period a year earlier, according to the Governors Highway Safety Association.

"These proposed updates to NCAP are an important step in addressing the crisis of roadway deaths in America," NHTSA Chief Counsel Ann Carlson said in a statement. "Vehicles must be designed to protect their occupants while increasing safety for those outside the vehicle, too."

If adopted, these tests would be the first in the program to specifically evaluate pedestrian safety measures, according to NHTSA. The agency plans to highlight model-year vehicles that meet the testing criteria using check marks on its website.

NHTSA also announced that it is developing a rule to set safety standards and potentially require automatic emergency braking, including pedestrian automatic emergency braking, on all newly manufactured light vehicles. Twenty automakers voluntarily committed to equip at least 95 percent of their light-duty cars and trucks with automatic emergency braking for vehicles manufactured between Sept. 1, 2022, and Aug. 31, 2023.

NHTSA last year released a long-awaited proposal to update the program. The proposal called for the inclusion of four advanced driver-assistance technologies, including automatic emergency braking with pedestrian detection, to the agency's recommendations.