Japan to Require Acceleration Control Devices in New Cars
Have you ever pressed the accelerator pedal in your car instead of the brake? You might say, "Of course not!" But it actually happens quite a lot, and can lead to serious accidents.
Often these accidents involve elderly drivers. And in Japan, which has an aging population, such accidents are increasing. Data from Japan has shown that older drivers are eight times more likely to press the wrong pedal than younger drivers.
According to the Institute for Traffic Accident Research and Data Analysis, last year there were 3,110 accidents in Japan caused by drivers pressing the accelerator instead of the brake. These resulted in 4,343 injuries and 38 deaths.
To deal with this problem, Japan is introducing a new rule that will require all new cars to have devices that can control acceleration when the accelerator is pressed by mistake.
These devices can stop acceleration if there is an object, such as a wall, another car, or a person either in front of the car or behind it. If a driver steps fully on the accelerator pedal within 1 meter to 1.5 meters of such an object, the device will either stop the car or reduce its speed to under 8 kilometers per hour.
An in-vehicle display will also warn the driver with a message, such as, "Step off the accelerator pedal."
In 2022, Japan proposed that the United Nations (UN) set international standards for such devices. This proposal was approved in June of this year, and the new standards are expected to be formally agreed by the UN in November.
Japan's transport ministry will then revise its own rules after the UN standards are agreed. The rules will at first apply only to new automatic models, but they will later be applied to existing automatic cars as well.
Manual cars are far less likely to be involved in such accidents, and will not be affected by the rules.
