U.S. to require automatic emergency braking on new vehicles in 5 years

Overall sentiment

• Strongly mixed: many skeptical due to bad experiences with current systems; others argue the aggregate safety gains justify a mandate.
• Thread repeatedly contrasts individual annoyance/risk vs. population-level reduction in crashes and fatalities.

Real‑world experiences with automatic emergency braking (AEB)

• Several drivers report frequent false positives: hard braking on narrow roads, during passes, in curves, or due to road debris, signs, trees.
• Some systems reportedly pull toward the shoulder or brake mid‑turn, creating new hazards (risk of being rear‑ended, loss of control, or lane deviation).
• Other users report mostly positive experiences: AEB or collision warning intervened in close calls (rear‑end situations, a pedestrian crossing during a right turn).
• False positives vary by implementation; some systems give only warnings first, others go straight to hard braking.

Safety effectiveness and cost-benefit

• Cited estimates: ~362 lives saved/year for about $82 per car (≈$354M/year), argued to be cost‑effective vs. typical “value of a statistical life.”
• Some point to data suggesting AEB can prevent a large fraction of rear‑end crashes; others note many current systems perform poorly at higher speeds.
• One argument: reducing speed by even 10 km/h before impact meaningfully reduces severity, even if a crash still occurs.
• Counter‑argument: new categories of crashes from false activations may offset some gains; true net effect seen as unclear by skeptics.

Mandates, regulation, and “freedom”

• Supporters compare this to historical safety mandates (seat belts, ABS, airbags), arguing large social costs of crashes (~40k deaths/year, huge medical costs) justify regulation.
• Opponents frame it as government overreach and a precedent for more intrusive controls (e.g., remote shutdowns, mandated sensors) and argue drivers should choose.
• Some raise concern about regulatory capture and lobbied mandates (analogy to France’s scrapped in‑car breathalyzer rule).

Technology maturity and reliability thresholds

• Many see current AEB, lane assist, and collision detection as immature: 99–99.9% correctness viewed as insufficient when controlling a fast, heavy vehicle.
• Others note that AEB is already common in new cars and that standardized requirements may push manufacturers to improve robustness.

Costs, equity, and alternatives

• Concerns that added tech raises car prices, effectively taxing poorer drivers in car‑dependent regions.
• Some argue cars are underpriced given externalities and that higher costs and safety mandates are beneficial.
• Alternatives proposed: better public transit and housing near jobs, smaller/lighter vehicles, stricter speed enforcement or speed governors (with debate over edge cases and safety trade‑offs).