The National Transportation Safety Board wants the U.S. government to mandate new safety technologies in all vehicles to help mitigate driver distraction. The board wants to require forward collision warning and lane departure warning systems, adaptive cruise controls and advanced braking on all new vehicles.As part of its top 10 safety recommendations, the NTSB also wants the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to set performance standards for the technologies that are primarily on luxury cars.
"Their full life-saving and crash-avoidance potential will not be realized until supported by federal rulemaking and related standards," the board said.
The NTSB also repeated its call for banning all portable cellphone use — including hands-free calls — that it first made in December. So far, no state has followed suit; the only U.S. city to do so, Chapel Hill, N.C., saw its ordinance overturned by a local judge in August.
The Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers — the trade group representing Detroit's Big Three automakers, Toyota Motor Corp., Volkswagen AG and others — praised the technologies, but opposes making them mandatory.
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