PHILADELPHIA 鈥� As American Trucking Associations wrapped up its annual Management Conference & Exhibition here on Oct. 20, the board of directors urged the nation鈥檚 truck and car manufacturers to equip all new vehicles with automatic emergency braking systems.

In June, the National Transportation Safety Board encouraged manufacturers to take the same step. The technology, which is akin to automatic cruise control, already is听 available from Bendix Commercial Vehicle Systems and Meritor Wabco.

鈥淚n our role as a safety leader, we believe ATA needs to be at the forefront of advocating for proven safety technologies,鈥� ATA President Bill Graves听said. 鈥淭he experience of our member fleets tells us that automatic emergency braking systems hold tremendous promise and as such, we believe manufacturers should make this equipment standard and the federal government should seriously look at issuing regulatory standards.鈥�

ATA Chairman Pat Thomas, senior vice president of state government affairs for UPS, noted that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration announced last month that 10 auto manufacturers had agreed to make automatic emergency braking systems standard.听

Graves said that听鈥渒nowing how committed we are to advancing safety,鈥澨齆HTSA Administrator Mark Rosekind then reached out to ATA for its support of similar technology being added to trucks.

鈥淚t鈥檚 my understanding that NHTSA has been in conversation with some of the truck manufacturers,鈥� Graves said. 鈥淲e hope that our OEMs will embrace this. Having folks voluntarily agree to add this technology to their vehicles, we certainly applaud that approach. It鈥檚 a significant departure from what many in our industry have come to expect from government.鈥�

However, Graves added that 鈥渢here may be a regulatory path鈥� in the next couple of years if voluntary compliance doesn鈥檛 happen, and 鈥渨e need to be supportive of that 鈥� to make sure that this technology is actually fully employed out on the nation鈥檚 highways.鈥�