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The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) evaluates autonomous emergency braking (AEB) systems as part of its front crash prevention (FCP) ratings. To prepare the test vehicles' brakes, each vehicle must have 200 miles on the odometer and be subjected to the abbreviated brake burnish procedure of Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard (FMVSS) 126. Other organizations conducting AEB testing follow the more extensive burnishing procedure described in FMVSS 135; Light Vehicle Brake Systems. This study compares the effects on AEB performance of the two burnishing procedures using seven 2014 model year vehicles. Six of the vehicles achieved maximum AEB speed reductions after 60 or fewer FMVSS 135 stops. After braking performance stabilized, the Mercedes ML350, BMW 328i, and Volvo S80 showed increased speed reductions compared with stops using brand new brake components.

Pedestrian protection evaluations have been developed to encourage vehicle front-end designs that mitigate the consequences of vehicle-to-pedestrian crashes. The European New Car Assessment Program (Euro NCAP) evaluates pedestrian head protection with impacts against vehicle hood, windshield, and A-pillars. The Global Technical Regulation No. 9 (GTR 9), being evaluated for U.S. regulation, limits head protection evaluations to impacts against vehicle hoods. The objective of this study was to compare results from pedestrian head impact testing to the real-world rates of fatal and incapacitating injuries in U.S. pedestrian crashes. Data from police reported pedestrian crashes in 14 states were used to calculate real-world fatal and incapacitating injury rates for seven 2002-07 small cars. Rates were 2.17-4.04 per 100 pedestrians struck for fatal injuries and 10.45-15.35 for incapacitating injuries.