The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration or NHTSA has opened a preliminary evaluation to investigate hundreds of complaints from Honda owners regarding the inadvertent activation of the emergency braking system.
The NHTSA received a total of 278 complaints, and 171 came from Honda CR-V owners, while the rest were from Honda Accord owners.
The investigation covers more than 1.73 million vehicles, including 2018 and 2019 Hinda Accord vehicles and 2017 and 2019 Honda CR-V crossovers.
NHTSA Investigates Honda
A document posted on the NHTSA website showed that the complaints allege braking incidents, with some indicating massive speed changes. These incidents happened with nothing obstructing the car's path of travel.
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Six of the 278 complaints allege that inadvertent braking incidents resulted in accidents with minor injuries.
According to Automotive News, one complaint reads that, driving down their rural road to their neighborhood twice in the past months, the Honda vehicle flashed the brake sign on the dash and applied the emergency brakes.
After touching the brake pedal, the vehicle returned to its normal speed. The road had no obstructions, and no vehicles were in front of them coming from the other direction.
A preliminary evaluation is not an investigation, but it is the step done before a full investigation is conducted in most cases.
At this phase, NHTSA gathers information from Honda, including data on complaints, injuries, and warranty claims, according to Ars Technica.
This phase is also where the manufacturer can express its view regarding the issue and may order Honda to recall.
After the evaluation, NHTSA can either close the investigation or move to send a recall request to the automaker in case the issue is safety-related, according to Motor Illustrated.
The same evaluation was opened last week into Tesla Model 3 and Model Y units that were manufactured in 2021 and 2022 due to unintended braking incidents. According to the NHTSA, 416,000 vehicles were affected by the evaluation.
In 2014, Honda expanded the US recall because of the Takata airbags.
How Does the Emergency Brake Work?
The CR-V has an electric parking brake with an automatic brake hold. CR-V owners use a switch instead of a lever or pedal to set the parking brake.
As soon as it is activated, the automatic brake hold maintains the braking pressure when the driver applies the brakes, like in stop-and-go traffic, and releases the brakes when the driver applies the accelerator.
The electric parking brake of the vehicle can be set to engage automatically every time the ignition is turned off. When the ignition is on, and the lever is in the park, make sure the brake pedal is not depressed.
Pull up and release the parking brake switch to activate the parking brake. Pull up and hold the switch until there is a beeping sound, then slowly release the switch. After three seconds, pull up and hold it again. When you hear two beeps, slowly release the switch.
The parking brake will be engaged automatically whenever the ignition is shut off. To permanently deactivate the feature, do the process again that is stated above, and you will hear a beep at the end to let you know that the feature has been disabled.
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This article is owned by Tech TImes
Written by Sophie Webster
