The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration plans to add two automatic emergency braking systems – crash imminent braking (CIB) and dynamic brake support (DBS) – to the agency’s list of recommended advanced safety features included under the New Car Assessment Program.

U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx announced the plans on Thursday, Jan. 22, in hopes of sparking further development, commercialization and adoption of the safety technologies. NHTSA is an agency within the U.S. Department of Transportation.

“I want this department, the entire automotive industry, and other innovators to keep raising the bar on safety like we are doing now,” Foxx said.

According to NHTSA data, one-third of all police-reported crashes in 2013 involved a rear-end collision with another vehicle at the start of the crash. The agency also found that a large number of drivers involved in rear-end crashes either did not apply the brakes at all or did not apply the brakes fully prior to the crash.

Crash imminent braking and dynamic brake support systems can intervene by automatically applying the vehicle's brakes or supplementing the driver's braking effort to mitigate the severity of the crash or to avoid it altogether.

These automatic emergency braking (AEB) systems, along with promising innovations such as vehicle-to-vehicle communications (V2V) and automated vehicle technologies, hold great promise to save lives and prevent crashes, Foxx noted.

“Adding AEB to our list of recommended features will encourage consumers to consider AEB as a factor in their new car purchase and encourage automakers to make this important innovation more widely available,” added NHTSA Administrator Mark Rosekind. “NCAP is a critical tool for enhancing safety, so we are also looking at additional innovations to the program to capitalize on this exciting period of progress in safety technology.”

In 2013, NHTSA requested public comment on how the federal safety agency should update NCAP. The resulting comments led to the planned expansion of the list of recommended technologies.

NCAP currently recommends three advanced technology features that also help drivers avoid or mitigate crashes: forward collision warning, lane departure warning and rearview video systems. Vehicles with recommended advanced technology features already included under NCAP can be viewed on www.safercar.gov. The site also includes NHTSA’s Five-Star safety ratings, which measure the crashworthiness and rollover safety of vehicles.