US regulators Thursday proposed a requirement that autos sold in the United States be equipped with electronic stability control systems, saying it could save 10,000 lives a year. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration proposal would require all manufacturers to begin equipping light passenger vehicles with the computerized system starting with the 2009 model year and to have the feature as standard equipment on all vehicles by the 2012 model year.
The systems, already available on some models, use automatic computer-controlled braking of individual wheels to keep the car from skidding out of control and off the road.
This would likely prevent rollovers, since nearly all rollover crashes occur after a vehicle leaves the road, NHTSA said.
A 2004 study by NHTSA estimated that these systems reduced fatalities in single-vehicle crashes by 30 percent for passenger cars and 63 percent for sport utility vehicles (SUVs).
The agency estimates that the requirement will save between 5,300 and 10,300 lives annually and prevent between 168,000 and 252,000 injuries.
The average cost is estimated to be 111 dollars per vehicle on models that already include anti-lock brakes.
Safety activists praised the move.
"Electronic stability control is the single most important advance in auto safety since the development of the seatbelt," said David Champion, senior director of automotive testing for Consumer Reports.
"We are pleased to see NHTSA recognizing the value of this system and hope that manufacturers will move rapidly to provide (the systems) on all the vehicles in their product lines, no matter what the cost."
NHTSA said about 29 percent of all 2006 models and 57 percent of SUVs are already equipped with stability control systems.
Source: Agence France-Presse
