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TECHNOLOGY A23
Thursday 18 February 2016
Automatic braking for cars: Private talks on technology pace
JOAN LOWY their production schedules
Associated Press rather than safety consid-
WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. erations.
government regulators Besides NHTSA, meeting
and the auto industry are participants included 16
taking a more lenient ap- automakers, two auto in-
proach than safety advo- dustry trade groups and
cates like when it comes to the Insurance Institute for
phasing in automatic brak- Highway Safety, the insur-
ing systems for passenger ance industry’s safety re-
cars, according to records search arm.
of their private negotia- Representatives from
tions. Transport Canada, the Ca-
The technology automati- nadian government’s auto
cally applies brakes to pre- safety regulator, also at-
vent or mitigate collisions, tended.
rather than waiting for the Mark Rosekind, NHTSA’s
driver to act. It’s the most administrator, has said the
important safety technol- federal rule-making pro-
ogy available today that’s cess is so cumbersome and
not already required in time-consuming that a vol-
cars. untary agreement is likely
Such systems should be to get the technology into
standard in all new cars, all cars faster.
says the National Highway In this frame grab from video provided by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS), taken He said regulations remain
in 2015, a vehicle closes in on a Strikeable Surrogate Vehicle (SSV) at the IIHS Vehicle Research
Traffic Safety Administra- Center in Ruckersville, Va. an option.
tion. But instead of man- Associated Press The Association of Global
dating it, the government Automakers, which has
is trying to work out a vol- taken the lead for the in-
untary agreement with au- “Consumers are going to exempt 5 percent of their public. Only minutes from dustry on the issue, didn’t
come up the losers in this vehicles from the standard. the first meeting were in
tomakers in hopes of get- process,” said Clarence The discussion included an the agency’s public dock- immediately reply to a re-
Ditlow, executive direc- additional exemption for et, but a NHTSA spokes-
ting it in cars more quickly. tor of the Center for Auto models that manufactur- man provided minutes to quest for comment.
Safety. ers intend to phase out or the other two minutes in
But safety advocates say Meeting minutes obtained redesign. response to a request from “Regulations can be too
by The Associated Press of The minutes don’t specify the AP.
voluntary agreements three of the meetings that a model year by which Minutes to a fourth meet- rigid when technology like
NHTSA has held with auto- the technology would have ing were unavailable, the
aren’t enforceable and makers since October that to be included in cars. The AP was told. this is changing quickly,”
show the government is group did decide that dis- “This is what happens when
are likely to contain weak- considering significant con- cussion of any deadline you start negotiating with said Russ Rader, a spokes-
cessions. would begin with “the lat- the auto industry,” said
er standards and longer Records of the third nego- est date submitted by any Joan Claybook, a safety man for insurance institute.
tiating session, on Nov. 12, automaker” for when they advocate and NHTSA’s ad-
timelines than if the gov- show that automatic brak- would be ready to make ministrator during the Cart- “A complicated regulation
ing systems would be al- the change. er administration. “They
ernment had issued rules. lowed that slow vehicles by The agency is required want to negotiate this out could make it more difficult
as little as 5 mph (8 kph) be- by law to provide meet- and they want to negoti-
There are about 1.7 million fore a collision. Manufac- ing minutes of such nego- ate that out,” and estab- for the automakers and
turers would be allowed to tiations and to make them lish a deadline driven by
rear-end crashes a year in their suppliers to continue
the U.S., killing more than to develop the systems.”
200 people, injuring 400,000 Safety advocates who met
others and costing about with Rosekind this week
$47 billion annually. More said he told them he hopes
than half of those crashes to wrap up negotiations
could be avoided or miti- on a voluntary agreement
gated by automatic brak- within the month. Safety
ing or systems that warn groups have filed a peti-
drivers of an impending tion asking NHTSA to issue
collision, NHTSA estimated. regulations instead.q
Obama creates cyber panel, says long-term vigilance needed
BY KEVIN FREKING to serve as vice chairman. Obama issued an execu- White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest listens during the daily
ASSOCIATED PRESS Their task, Obama said, is to tive order establishing the briefing at the White House in Washington, Wednesday, Feb. 17,
WASHINGTON (AP) - Presi- produce a report by Dec. 1 bipartisan commission ear- 2016. Earnest talked about the death of Supreme Court Justice
dent Barack Obama on that will guide future presi- lier this month. It comes Antonin Scalia.
Wednesday appointed dents on the infrastructure as federal agencies are
his former national secu- necessary to confront long- facing ever-more sophis- Associated Press
rity adviser, Tom Donilon, term computer challenges. ticated attacks. Among
to lead a new commission Obama said the Internet the most serious breaches
on cybersecurity that will has brought incredible op- in the past year occurred
make detailed recommen- portunity and wealth, but it when hackers gained ac-
dations on how the nation also means “that more and cess to the personal infor-
should better protect itself more of our lives are being mation of more than 22 mil-
against computer attacks. downloaded.” lion U.S. federal employees,
Donilon will serve as chair- “Right now, we are not retirees, contractors and
man of the Commission as well organized as we others, and millions of sen-
on Enhancing National need to be to make sure sitive and classified docu-
Cybersecurity. Obama will that we’re dealing with all ments maintained by the
appoint former IBM chief these threats in an effec- Office of Personnel Man-
executive Sam Palmisano tive way,” Obama said. agement. q
