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Various - Emergency Brake Assist or EBA - KenC

I heard today on R4 that most car insurance premiums can be reduced by 10% if the car insured has EBA fitted.

Furthermore Thatcham are shortly going to recommend to vehicle manufacturers that EBA should be engineered into every vehicle at an estimated extra cost of from £50

I think HJ should include this feature as a seperate "button" on his car chooser

Various - Emergency Brake Assist or EBA - Cyd

Agreed

EBA reduces the chances of running into the rear of the vehicle in front quite significantly.

However, the rest of us should make sure to "keep our distance" as an EBA equiped car can stop extremely quickly and so increasing the chances of running into it if too close.

Various - Emergency Brake Assist or EBA - Smileyman

The "problem" with EBA is it's not showy or flashy, like say a set of 18" alloys so unless it is fitted by legislation so how many dealers are going to include it as an optional extra on their demonstrator? I'd rather have this than tyre pressure monitoring, but that seems to be a legally required extra.

I think it's up to the insurance industry to push the European Commission (I guess, but for how long?) to make the EBA a standard fit on all road vehicles.

Various - Emergency Brake Assist or EBA - Engineer Andy

The question we should be asking is, like when ABS was fitted as standard on all cars by law, will drivers start driving even faster and more recklessly (e.g. driving as close as the technology permits or braking very late), leading to more accidents if you take into account system failures, unusual road conditions and other road users whose vehicles don't have this technology or it makes little difference (e.g. HGVs).

Tailgating, I believe, has got worse since I started driving in the early 1990s, especially on faster roads such as dual carriageways and motorways (particularly in bad weather/poor visibility). Too much technology such as this is making inherently bad drivers think they are good (or at least people think they are better drivers than they really are), and over-confidence is, in my view, very dangerous when applied to control of road vehicles. Everyone whould be capable of driving without the need for such 'driver aids', which should be used in case of an accident, not to push the limits of driving standards down.

Various - Emergency Brake Assist or EBA - galileo

Engineer Andy makes a good point about tailgating and the false sense of security given by safety systems.

On the M62 last weekend it was rare to see anyone in lane 3 that had left an appropriate gap to the one in front, so they were braking often and when matrix signs put on 50 and 40 limits the braking chain reaction led to a complete stop.

When I started driving in the 1960s there were no airbags, no seatbelts, no crumple zones and steering columns didn't telescope, so if you ran into something you weren't going to walk away.

I had seven friends hospitalised (as a result of bumps which nowadays wouldn't cause injuries worse than bruises) and was first on scene at a couple of gory accidents, lessons learned and driving modified accordingly.

Various - Emergency Brake Assist or EBA - Metropolis.

I got quite excited till I remembered EBD and EBA are not the same thing.