WASHINGTON (AP) -- The government plans to issue requirements next month that new vehicles include anti-rollover technology, officials said Thursday.

Nicole Nason, administrator of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, told a congressional budget panel that "electronic stability control" technology would be mandated on all new passenger vehicles by 2011.

NHTSA estimates the technology could save between 5,000 and 9,600 lives a year once it is fully deployed in the vehicle fleet, which would take more than a decade after the rules go into effect.

Anti-rollover technologies have been cited as one way to reduce the more than 43,000 traffic fatalities in the U.S. annually. Rollover accidents account for one-third of all fatalities, even though only 3 percent of vehicle crashes are rollovers.

"Crash avoidance technologies like ESC are just the beginning of what we hope is a new era in highway safety, where many crashes and the pain and suffering from those crashes are prevented outright," Nason said.

Electronic stability control senses when a driver may lose control of the vehicle and automatically applies brakes to individual wheels to help make it stable and avoid a rollover.

Many vehicles, including sport utility vehicles, already have the technology, and several automakers have already announced plans to include the technology in the future.

NHTSA said last year the proposal would cost about $111 (euro83) per vehicle on those that already include antilock brakes, or a total of $479 (euro359) per vehicle for the entire system.

Some safety groups said the proposed rule, first announced last year, will not deploy the technology into the fleet fast enough and does not require the most stringent performance standards.

Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety, an organization supported by consumer, health and safety groups and insurance companies, wrote in November that NHTSA had proposed a "minimal standard" for stability control that accommodated all existing ESC systems while taking into account higher safety benefits from superior ESC systems to reach its estimated reduction of deaths and injuries.

But Ronald Medford, NHTSA's senior associate administrator, said Thursday the technology is continuing to improve and the number of lives saved could be better than projections indicate.

Separately, Nason said the agency was looking much more seriously at requiring seat belts on commercial buses and planned to seek comments on the issue. Five Ohio college baseball players were killed in a March 2 bus crash in Atlanta, along with the driver and his wife.

For school buses, Nason said she planned to hold an event in July to receive input from school district administrators, drivers and others on whether to require seat belts.