TOKYO: Japan's transport ministry said Tuesday that it will require new automobiles in Japan to be equipped with automatic braking systems from November 2021 in order to reduce the number of accidents caused by elderly drivers.

Japan is expected to become the first country in the world to make automatic braking systems in new vehicles mandatory, according to the ministry.

Automatic braking systems must be retrofitted, from December 2025, in existing passenger cars made in Japan, the ministry said. The requirement will apply from around June 2024 for imported new vehicles and around June 2026 for imported finished passenger cars.

Automatic braking systems detect other vehicles and pedestrians ahead using onboard radars and cameras, and will trigger a warning sound when there is a possibility of collision and apply the brakes when the possibility is high. They are thought to be effective in mitigating the damage of collisions with other vehicles or people crossing the street. Such systems are equipped on 84.6 pct of all domestically produced vehicles sold in 2018.

The required standards for automatic braking systems include being able to prevent the automobile from colliding with a stationary vehicle ahead when it is traveling at 40 kilometers per hour, with a vehicle running at 20 kph in front when the automobile itself is traveling at 60 kph, and with a 115-centimeter-tall model of a child crossing the street at 5 kph when the automobile is traveling at 30 kph.

Such systems are unable to completely prevent crashes, however. The number of accidents thought to have been caused by overconfidence in automatic braking systems came to 101 in the whole of 2018 and 80 in the first nine months of this year.

"There are limits to the functions of automatic brakes, and the responsibility for safe driving falls on the driver," a ministry official said.

JIJI Press