Japan to Mandate Anti-Unintended-Acceleration Technology in New Automatic Cars

TapTechNews July 8th news, in order to prevent accidents caused by drivers mistaking the accelerator for the brake, the Ministry of Transport of Japan announced that it will require all newly produced automatic transmission passenger cars to be equipped with technology to prevent unintended acceleration.

This measure aims to deal with the increasingly serious aging problem in Japan. With the increase in the number of elderly drivers, such traffic accidents occur frequently. This new regulation is in line with the new regulation that the United Nations will implement next June.

Transport Minister Tetsuo Saito of Japan said at a news conference at the end of June: Japan has been proposing this technology as an international standard since 2022.

We will be ready to implement the new regulation and strive to improve vehicle safety, he said, but did not give a specific implementation time.

This technology can suppress vehicle acceleration. Even if the driver fully depresses the accelerator pedal at a distance of 1-1.5 meters from a large object, the car will stop before hitting the object or reduce the speed to less than 8 kilometers per hour in the case of an inevitable collision.

The Ministry of Transport of Japan said that when the relevant device is activated, a warning will also be issued on the in-car display, such as release the accelerator pedal.

After the United Nations regulation is officially passed in November this year, the Ministry of Transport of Japan will amend the relevant regulations and require this technology to be installed first on newly produced automatic transmission models, and then expand to the successor models of existing models.

According to TapTechNews, manual transmission cars are exempted from this new regulation because they are less likely to have accidents caused by stepping on the wrong pedal.

According to the data of the Japan Institute of Traffic Accident Research, in 2023, there were 3110 traffic accidents caused by drivers mistaking the accelerator for the brake in Japan, resulting in 38 deaths and 4343 injuries.