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Letting the car decide when you should brake makes a difference, it turns out.
Based on insurance claims for some GM and Subaru vehicles, IIHS said rear AEB can reduce damage liability claims by 28 percent, while a backup camera or those beeping sensors reduce that by just 5 percent.
Since rear AEB is not widespread, IIHS said it is not going to use it as a requirement for its Top Safety Pick designations anytime soon.
Backing up a car is often a safe process, but it could certainly be safer. And it is, when a vehicle is equipped with rear automated emergency braking (AEB) technology. The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) has released results of a new study that found rear AEB helps reduce the number of insurance claims more than any other safety technology the group has studied.

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Rear AEB uses the same ultrasonic sensors that in many vehicles beep at the driver if there’s something in the way of the moving car, but the “A” means the vehicle will automatically stop if it determines it’s about to hit an object. That small but important change drops the number of property damage liability claims by 28 percent and the number of collusion claims by 10 percent, IIHS found. Compared to other backup safety technologies that help prevent incidents, none are as effective as rear AEB. Rear cameras and parking sensors, for example, each reduced property damage liability claims by 5 percent and had minimal impact on collusion claims.

IIHS

“When you compare vehicles with [rear AEB] and vehicles without, we’re seeing significant reductions in the frequency of insurance claims, bigger than the reductions we’re seeing for other technologies,” Joe Young, IIHS director of media relations, told Car and Driver.

Subaru reverse automatic braking.
Subaru

IIHS first calculated data for insurance claims for vehicles with rear AEB technology in 2017, using numbers from 2015 model General Motors vehicles (and some some from 2013 and 2014), including the Cadillac ATS, CTS, SRX, XTS, and Escalade. The new study adds in details for model year 2015–2018 Subarus, including the Legacy, Outback, Forester, Impreza, and Crosstrek. These two automakers were chosen because they were able to provide IIHS with the feature-level data required to analyze the numbers.
Despite the dramatic impacts rear AEB has on insurance claims, the technology is available on only around 30 percent of 2020 models, either as standard or optional equipment, Young said. IIHS is not pushing for any regulatory changes around rear AEB at the moment and has no plans to incorporate it into the group’s Top Safety Pick assessments in the near future. IIHS does use front crash prevention performance in deciding which vehicles are named Top Safety Pick or Top Safety Pick+ recipients. It’s also keeping a list of automakers that have fulfilled earlier pledges by adopting front or rear AEB.
“We hope that automakers see the clear benefit to their customers and add the technology to more vehicles,” he said. “While we do carry some ratings for rear AEB systems, given that the technology isn’t as widespread, it’s not a major focus of our testing at the moment . . . It’s our hope that more automakers will add the technology since the potential is clearly quite large.”
While precise figures are not public, Young said it’s unlikely that adding rear AEB is a big expense for automakers since the cost of adding rear AEB is often bundled with other technologies and relies on the ultrasonic parking sensors that are already standard or optional on many new vehicles.

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A motorsports company in the U.K. is building new versions of the Mk 2 Ford Escort from the 1970s.
Successful as a rally car for decades, the European second-generation Escort generation was the last to feature a rear-wheel-drive layout.
Motorsports Tools’ newly built RWD Escorts start at around $90,000.
Although the Ford Escort rarely features high on the list of the Blue Oval’s most memorable models in the U.S., the Escort name was attached to some considerably more exciting cars in Europe. That list includes both the famous RS Cosworth variant from the 1990s and its double-decker rear spoiler, but also the spectacular rally cars of the earlier rear-wheel-drive Mk 1 and Mk 2 generations.

A Visual History of Every Ford RS Model

Check Out this Ford Escort RS Cosworth on eBay

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These RS Escorts were hugely successful racing cars back in the day, with Ari Vatanen driving a Mk 2 RS1800 to the World Rally Championship in 1981. Thanks to progressive upgrades to engines, transmission and suspensions, they have stayed at the sharp end of European rallying ever since, especially in the U.K. and Ireland, remaining competitive even against more advanced all-wheel-drive rivals. Check out the late Colin McRae’s savagely fast Mk 2 or Northern Irishman Frank Kelly’s spectacular ‘Baby Blue’ to see just how exciting these evolved Escorts can be.
The huge popularity of the Escort has created a thriving market in both upgrades and parts, with U.K. motorsport specialist Motorsport Tools now having taken the next step to move to create brand-new cars. You’re looking at images of the first rear-wheel-drive Escort to be registered in the U.K. since 1980, with the company planning to produce around 10 finished cars per year. Prices starting at £65,000—nearly $90,000 at current exchange rates.

Motorsport Tools

One thing you won’t see is a Ford badge, as MST has not been given official sanction to bring the Escort out of retirement.
“Our main business is rally car parts and all the parts are available to build these cars,” Motorsport Tools managing director Carwyn Ellis told Car and Driver from his company’s HQ in Wales, “all we’ve done is taken them and put them together. We can’t sell it as a Ford of course, especially as these cars are now very different to the original cars from the 1970s. But I know Ford is very proud of what the car has achieved and continues to achieve.”
While most interest has been from those planning to take their new Escorts rallying, Ellis confirms that some will be built as highly tuned road cars. “A lot of our customers aren’t intending to go rallying with them,” he said, ”they want a toy that looks like a rally car and performs like a rally car—the performance that they can use on road or on a race track. There are lots of people out there who are realizing that supercars are getting too fast to drive hard on the road—something like this, you still can.”

Motorsport Tools

The first Motorsport Tools demonstrator has been built to a relatively tame road-biased specification, using a naturally aspirated Ford Duratec four-cylinder engine with its capacity increased to 2.5 liters and separate throttle bodies. That means it makes around 200 horsepower, enough to be exciting in a car weighing less than 2200 pounds with no driver aids. It has a six-speed manual gearbox driving its live rear axle with Bilstein shocks, AP racing brakes and gold Minilite wheels within extended wheel arches. Buyers will be able to opt for much more power with more aggressive engines—U.K. supplier Millington produces Escort engines making up to 370 hp—as well as sequential transmissions and other pricey upgrades. Tick every box and the finished car will be substantially more than $140,000.
“We will work with individual customers, they will all be unique,” Ellis says, “it depends on what people are looking for, whether they need to follow the restrictions for certain championships and how fast they want to go.” He also confirmed there will also be a similar “continuation” version of the earlier Mk 1 Escort which was produced between 1968 and 1974 and which will have more appeal to those who compete under historic rallying regulations.
“Interest has been a bit overwhelming, to be honest,” Ellis admits, who says there has even been interest from potential buyers in the U.S. Production will be limited to no more than ten cars a year, and Ellis has no doubt he will be able to find willing buyers for all of them.
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