The U.S. National Transportation Safety Board in a report recommends that collision avoidance technology systems become standard on all new passenger and commercial vehicles.

“You don’t pay extra for your seatbelt,” says Chairman Christopher Hart. “And you shouldn’t have to pay extra for technology that can help prevent a collision altogether.”

NTSB’s Special Investigation Report, “The Use of Forward Collision Avoidance Systems to Prevent and Mitigate Rear-End Crashes,” says that collision avoidance systems can prevent or reduce the severity of rear-end crashes and save lives and reduce injuries.

Rear-end crashes kill about 1,700 people every year and injure half a million more, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). If vehicles has been equipped with a collision avoidance system, more than 80% of those deaths and injuries might have been avoided.

In the last 20 years, the NTSB says it has made 12 recommendations supporting the use of forward collision avoidance technologies, including 10 recommendations resulting from an earlier Special Investigation Report in 2001. However, according to this latest report, progress on previous recommendations has been limited, mainly because of a lack of incentives and limited public awareness.

“The promise of a next generation of safety improvements has been used too often to justify inaction,” says Hart. "Because there will always be better technologies over the horizon, we must be careful to avoid letting perfection become the enemy of the good."

The NTSB recommends that manufacturers make collision avoidance systems standard equipment in newly manufactured vehicles, starting with collision warning systems and autonomous emergency braking, once NHTSA establishes standards for those braking systems.

The NTSB also recommends that NHTSA develop tests and standards to rate the performance of each vehicle’s collision avoidance systems and to incorporate those results into an expanded safety rating scale.