Today’s car safety tech could save thousands of lives if standard, study says

If many of today’s active safety systems were standard on every new car sold, US traffic deaths would fall dramatically. The final takeaway from Consumer Reports’ latest study comes just as the US House of Representatives votes on news legislation that would make some of the technology mandatory in new vehicles.

The study, published Monday, calls out a handful of safety technologies available today, but often locked away in higher-priced trims on a lot of vehicles. Specifically, CR looked at automatic emergency braking, lane departure warning and blind sport warning. If the three technologies were adopted fleet-wide, the US would see 11,000 fewer traffic deaths.

The study also looked at pedestrian detection systems, which would prevent another 800 deaths annually, based on the organization’s study and data. Each of these three technologies are available today and many automakers have moved to bundle these three features as standard equipment.
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