Alabama's Morning News with JT
Jeff Monosso on emergency braking systems could be required soon
5280 Exterior's James Hardy sighting is a low-maintenance sighting made primarily of cement that resists flame spread and repels wood-borne insects and woodpeckers. Through the month of July, you'll receive free, rigid foam installation with the purchase of whole-house sighting. That's installing additional insulation behind your sighting, or free, but only for the month of July. Call today for more details or visit 5280exterior's.com. 5280exterior's.com, a James Hardy preferred contractor, 5280 Exterior's, the altitude of quality. This weekend, I was standing there in my neighbor's driveway, having a conversation with him. He has got a new car, and it's got all sorts of fancy bells and whistles on it, and one of them is this feature. It has the lane-keeping assist, and one of them is this thing that keeps you from running into somebody by if it senses somebody coming up on you too fast. It pumps the brakes hard, and he said that he can turn off other stuff. He can turn off the lane-keeping thing. He can turn off anything, except that one, apparently, is a safety feature you cannot turn off. It turns out there's actually a mandate, and that's the reason why you can't turn it off. Joining me now is Jeff Minaso. He's live in Chicago, and Jeff, I understand now that the automotive industry is asking government to reconsider the new rule, requiring trucks to have the emergency braking system. This is a rule. Hey, good morning, John. This is a rule that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration came up with for automatic emergency braking in response to the direction by Congress, which included a provision in the 2021 infrastructure law that directed the agency to essentially develop a regulation establishing minimum performance standards for automatic emergency braking systems. Now, you've got this group that basically represents most all automakers. They're asking the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to reconsider this rule that requires all new cars and trucks by 2029 to have advanced automatic emergency braking systems, AEB systems, that essentially they use cameras, they use sensors to detect possible collisions with a car in front of it, and in these cameras and sensors, they detect and they essentially use computers to classify objects. So the alliance for automotive innovation says this requirement that all cars would be able to stop and avoid striking vehicles in front of them at up to 62 miles per hour is practically impossible with available technology. So essentially that it needs more work. The group also say that the government stringent requirements at higher driving speeds will result in vehicles automatically applying the brakes far in advance of what a typical driver and others on the road would expect resulting, it says, in rear-end collisions. But we should know, John, that the AEB systems that are now standard about 10% of vehicles on the roads, they also cost about $3,000 a piece. And there's two issues there. First of all, you're right about the first thing, because I know on a more than one occasion I've been on the interstate and somebody kind of stops fast in front of me. And one of the first things I do as I'm hitting my brakes is I'm kind of looking in the rear rear-end mirror, how close is the guy behind me? Do I need to get out of that guy's way? Because if I just break check that guy, I'm going to be looking at a new bumper. Yeah, I mean, you try driving to Chicago, you're working the windshield and you're working the rear-view mirror at the same exact time and trying to be exactly, trying to make sure you don't hit somebody's front end. Rear-end, well, they're trying to make sure somebody doesn't hit your rear-end, but look, the NTSB, their message, and it's a good one, it's hard to argue. They say that this tech will save lives, it has, and it will save lives. Over 42,000 people die in crashes in the U.S. in 2023, and the cars are going to break at different times and perhaps not what we would normally expect, but sooner. And that would mean they would be avoiding collisions and, well, it's expensive, a lot of technology may not be perfect, the argument is that one life saved is very important. So I'm not sure where it's going to go, but we'll see what happens. Well, it's well intended. The thing is, though, I think that it needs to be adjustable. I don't like the idea of the one size fits all, we're going to put this product on your car and you have to take it, whether you want it or not, and it's going to break the way that we designed it regardless of the driving situation. What if you're, because in, for example, on rain and ice, you don't hit the brakes the same way on an icy or rainy road because you'll slip and you know that. And so all the ABS, all the anti-lock braking in the world, it would be better if you kind of steered around a problem as opposed to just jam the brakes and then lose control of the vehicle. Yeah, I wonder if we could put it to a vote to consumers. I was talking to you over the weekend, John, and they were saying, you know, if automakers came up with a car that, you know, you've got, it's old school, you brand new, but you've got just, you know, the radio with a CD player, you know, manual automatic transmission and power windows and then some safety features, do you think that those cars would sell? Yes. And I said, I do, I think most of us don't know how to use most of the tech in our cars and they're kind of glitchy and they're kind of annoying, so yeah, I guess consumers will have the ultimate saying. I've got a 10-year-old, actually it's 11 years old, and I intend to keep it as long as I possibly can. Jeff Minaso, thank you so much for joining me. 5280 exteriors James Hardy sighting is a low maintenance sighting made primarily of cement that resist flame spread and repels woodborne insects and woodpeckers. For the month of July, you'll receive free rigid foam installation with the purchase of whole house sighting. That's installing additional installation behind your sighting for free, but only for the month of July. Call today for more details or visit 5280exteriors.com, 5280exteriors.com, a James Hardy preferred contractor, 5280 exteriors, the altitude of quality. [MUSIC PLAYING]