NHTSA Proposes Mandatory Automatic Emergency Braking for All New Cars and Light Trucks

On May 31, 2023, the U.S. Department of Transportation's NHTSA announced a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking that would require automatic emergency braking systems — including pedestrian-detection AEB — on all new passenger cars and light trucks. The proposed rule, if finalized, would make forward-facing windshield camera systems effectively universal on new vehicles sold in the United States.

NHTSA projected that the proposed rule, if finalized, would save at least 360 lives annually and reduce injuries by at least 24,000 each year. The agency also anticipated significant reductions in property damage from rear-end crashes, with many low-speed collisions avoided altogether.

"Today, we take an important step forward to save lives and make our roadways safer for all Americans," U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said in the NHTSA announcement. "Just as lifesaving innovations from previous generations like seat belts and air bags have helped improve safety, requiring automatic emergency braking will help protect families across our country."

For auto-glass shops, the proposed rule carried a direct implication: if AEB becomes mandatory, every new vehicle will carry a forward-facing camera mounted to or near the windshield, and every windshield replacement on a new vehicle will require camera recalibration. The calibration workload — already growing rapidly — would become a universal feature of the business rather than a specialization applicable to a subset of vehicles.

The proposed rule also intensified the stakes of calibration quality. An improperly calibrated AEB camera that fails to detect a pedestrian in a real emergency creates both safety risk and liability exposure. Shops that invest in calibration equipment, training, and documentation now are positioning themselves for a regulatory environment that will eventually require this capability from all glass providers.

The NHTSA proposed rule opened a comment period, and finalization was expected to take additional time. But the direction of regulatory travel was clear: camera-equipped windshields are becoming the baseline, not the exception, and the auto-glass industry's calibration capabilities are increasingly central to the overall vehicle safety ecosystem.