Posted on July 1st, 2026
The State of ADAS Today
When it comes to reducing roadway deaths and serious injuries, there are plenty of reasons to be bullish about vehicle technology. The Safe System Approach posits that humans are always going to make mistakes, and that includes even the most experienced and cautious drivers. Technology can serve as a “safety net” when those mistakes happen, and take action to reduce the likelihood that a mistake leads to tragic consequences.
While we’re enthusiastic about the potentials of technology, we have to temper that enthusiasm with a look at the current vehicle landscape in the United States. ADAS technologies only became standard on new vehicles in recent years, and right now the average passenger vehicle on American roadways is about 13 years old, up from about nine years old a quarter-century ago. This means people are holding onto their older, non-ADAS-equipped cars for longer. Affordability concerns are one reason Americans may be reluctant to part with their older models: Last year, Kelley Blue Book reported that the average price of a new car had surpassed $50,000. That doesn’t mean you can’t find affordable cars with high safety ratings (just check out this list from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety and Consumer Reports of top-rated vehicles that can typically be found used for under $20,000). But it does mean that it will be quite some time until the majority of vehicles on the road at any given place will have blind spot protection, lane centering assistance, driver monitoring systems, and other technologies that you can learn more about here at My Car Does What.
In April 2024, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) finalized a new Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard that will require automatic emergency braking (AEB), including pedestrian AEB, as standard on all passenger cars and light trucks by September 2029. This standard is estimated to be able to save 360 lives a year and prevent over 24,000 injuries. Not long ago, this would have seemed like science fiction, but now, it will be completely normal for a car to stop itself before it can crash into a pedestrian. But because it will take several decades for every vehicle on the road to be from model year 2029 or later, we can’t become complacent and assume the cars will do all the work for us.
Learn what your vehicle’s features can and cannot do, but don’t assume other drivers on the road have car that can do likewise. For the foreseeable future, the human behind the wheel is still the most important feature of any vehicle.