AAA Finds 3 of 4 2026 Cars Hit a Test Car Turning Into Their Path

• AAA’s closed-course tests found that three of four 2026 models struck a soft car target turning into their lane from a side road, and only the Tesla Model Y stopped in time.
• The Chevrolet Equinox, Ford Explorer, Hyundai Tucson and Tesla Model Y all avoided a collision in every valid run of the standard left turn across oncoming traffic.
• AAA advises drivers to cover the brake when entering an intersection, with the right foot hovering over the pedal and the heel resting on the floor.

Why a Car That Brakes for Oncoming Traffic Can Still Miss One From the Side

Automatic emergency braking that watches intersections handled the left turn AAA tested and failed the side-road turn. In the left-turn test, all four vehicles avoided the soft car target in every valid run. When that target turned right into their path from a perpendicular road, the Chevrolet Equinox, Ford Explorer and Hyundai Tucson struck it in every valid run. The Tesla Model Y was the only one to stop short, in all five of its runs.

The stakes are high. The AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety studied 2020 to 2024 fatal-crash data from NHTSA’s FARS database at AAA’s request and found that angle crashes, a group that includes turn-across-path, turn-into-path and T-bone collisions, made up about 41% of reported two-vehicle fatalities. These are the crashes intersection braking was built to address.

Greg Brannon, who directs automotive engineering and research at AAA, summed up the findings this way. “Intersections are some of the most dangerous places on the road,” Brannon said. “AEB is making progress in the limited intersection scenarios it is tested to handle. Unfortunately, performance outside those scenarios is spotty.”

What AAA Tested and How

AAA ran the tests on a closed course at Minter Field Airport in Shafter, California, with the Automotive Research Center of the Automobile Club of Southern California as its partner. The four vehicles were 2026 models that carry intersection AEB as standard equipment: the Chevrolet Equinox, Ford Explorer, Hyundai Tucson and Tesla Model Y. AAA chose one model per automaker from 2026 fitment data and favored models with a large share of the U.S. market, so the group is a sample of four, not a ranking of every car on sale.

Before testing, each car received sensor calibration, a four-wheel alignment, a brake inspection and the latest software updates. The forward collision warning and braking timing were set to the middle sensitivity setting, or to the next-latest setting the manufacturer specified. All runs took place in daylight on dry asphalt, with a robotic soft vehicle target standing in for the other car.

The team ran two kinds of crash geometry. In the turn-into-path test, the test car drove straight at 30 mph while the target swung right into its lane from the cross street at 5 mph. The timing was set so that, with no intervention, the front right corner of the test car would hit the rear left corner of the target. A test driver held steady throttle until the system acted, then lifted off the accelerator to mimic a typical reaction, with no braking or steering input after that.

In the turn-across-path tests, the test car turned left at 9.3 mph across the path of an oncoming target traveling at 18.6 mph. That is the layout of the Euro NCAP car-to-car front turn-across-path test, which uses a turn signal and a steering robot. AAA then removed the turn signal in one version and replaced the robot with a human driver in another, to see whether the systems depended on the tidy conditions of the official protocol. Altogether the program produced 74 valid runs, with five planned for each car and configuration. Where a car gave neither a warning nor braking in the first three runs, AAA stopped that configuration to protect the equipment.

Where Three of the Four Systems Failed

The turn-into-path test was the hardest. Of 16 valid runs, five ended without contact, and the Model Y made every one of them. The numbers behind each car show how different the failures were.

The Tesla Model Y warned the driver in all five runs, on average 1.72 seconds before the collision point, and applied the brakes in all five, on average 0.86 seconds before it. Its peak deceleration averaged 0.99 g, and it left a mean gap of 1.60 meters between itself and the target.

The Chevrolet Equinox warned in four of five runs, on average 1.27 seconds out, but braked in only one run, 0.26 seconds before contact. It struck the target all five times. In its third run the warning came 0.33 seconds before impact. The single braking run trimmed the contact speed to 36.1 km/h, against 40.5 or 40.9 km/h in the other four.

The Ford Explorer and Hyundai Tucson gave no warning and applied no brakes in any of their three valid runs, and both struck the target every time. AAA reports contact speed as the difference between the two vehicles’ speeds at impact. The Equinox averaged 39.7 km/h, the Explorer 40.3 km/h and the Tucson 40.4 km/h, which works out to about 25 mph for each.

The Tucson had a second weak spot. In the left-turn test with the turn signal off and the robot steering, it gave no warning, did not brake and hit the target in all three valid runs, at a mean contact speed of 45.1 km/h, or about 28 mph. With the signal on, the same car avoided the target in all five runs. AAA’s report suggests the signal could be a necessary trigger or confirmation for that system’s intersection braking. The other three cars kept warning, braking and avoiding contact with the signal off.

Manual steering changed nothing. With a test driver turning the wheel and the signal on, all four cars warned, braked and stopped short of the target in every valid run.

From Zero Reaction in 2022 to a Split Result in 2026

AAA ran a similar study in 2022 on four vehicles whose standard AEB did not include maker-identified intersection functions. Those cars gave no alert and no braking in any of the 40 runs, and every run ended in a collision. The 2026 cars show clear progress. Under the Euro NCAP left-turn setup, they went 20 for 20.

AAA cautions against reading the two studies as a head-to-head comparison. The 2022 and 2026 tests used different vehicles, scenarios and speeds. The 2022 left turn ran at 10 mph against a 25 mph target, and its crossing test sent the car through at 30 mph, while the 2026 left turn runs at 9.3 mph against 18.6 mph. Even so, AAA concludes that results still vary by crash type and by automaker, and that the side-road turn remains a weak point.

Part of the reason is what gets tested. American test protocols for car-to-car braking have mostly centered on rear-end crashes. Euro NCAP began testing a few intersection scenarios in 2020, among them the left turn across oncoming traffic. NHTSA drafted an Intersection Safety Assist procedure in 2019 as a research document, and no final standard exists. A car can pass the one scenario that has a published test and still miss a scenario that does not.

AAA wants automakers to team up with researchers, regulators and safety groups and improve braking across more crash types, the side-road turn included. It also wants regulators and safety groups to widen the test protocols to cover more intersection situations and real driving conditions. Federal scoring is already changing in other areas: NHTSA’s 2027 crash test lineup arrived with a new pedestrian safety score.

What To Do at Your Next Intersection

AAA’s advice is short. Think of intersection AEB as one more layer of protection while you keep your eyes on the road. The report adds that drivers should know the limits of these systems and that depending on automation to avoid an intersection collision is not advised.

Cover the brake. As you enter an intersection, hold your right foot just over the brake pedal and keep your heel planted on the floor. The test results show how short the window is: the Model Y that avoided contact warned about 1.7 seconds out and braked about 0.9 seconds out, while the Equinox that braked once did so a quarter of a second before impact.

Watch the cross street. Expect that a nearby driver could turn into your lane, and be prepared to brake or steer yourself. In the test that caught out three cars, the other vehicle was crawling at 5 mph and the test car was at 30 mph.

Signal every left turn. In AAA’s trial, the turn signal was the only change that separated a Tucson that avoided the target in all five runs from one that failed to react in all three. Signaling is already a basic driving habit, and AAA’s results suggest it can also change what one car does.

Keep the sensors in working order. Each test car had its driver assist sensors calibrated before testing, and NHTSA has warned that lift kits and wheel offset changes could throw off driver assist sensors. A car modified after purchase is no longer the car AAA put through the course.

Finally, keep the results in proportion. Four cars on a closed course in daylight cannot say how every model performs, and a car not on this list is not proven worse or better. What the data shows is that passing the standard test does not guarantee the car will react to a vehicle pulling out from a side road.

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Sources

• AAA: Intersection AEB May Help Prevent Some Crashes, but Limitations Remain
• AAA: Performance of Intersection Automatic Emergency Braking Systems (research report, November 2026)
• AAA: Intersection Automatic Emergency Braking Performance Testing (fact sheet)

Reviewed by Preetam Gadekar