They will also be responsible for determining liability rules for driverless vehicles, establishing a plan to limit potential driver distraction and determine which party needs to have motor vehicle insurance – the manufacturer, the owner, the operator or the passenger.
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Vehicle Performance Guidance for manufacturers, developers and others, outlining a recommended 15-point program for safe design, development, testing, and deployment of self-driving vehicles prior to commercial sale. California now requires a steering wheel and brake pedals, but NHTSA has the authority to approve vehicles without them if the agency decides they’re safe.
He said the government’s involvement would help to ensure the novel technologies were safe to deploy. There are always those who argue that government should stay out of free enterprise entirely, but I think most Americans would agree we still need rules to keep our air and water clean, and our food and medicine safe. Throughout the document, titled, “Accelerating the Next Revolution In Roadway Safety”, NHTSA cites the importance of fostering innovation.
“Automated vehicles have the potential to save thousands of lives”, says U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx.
The Tesla involved in that fatal crash in Florida. NHTSA had authority to ask Tesla for details of the system’s design only after the crash. Though companies are not required to follow the guidance – it is voluntary and does not carry the force of formal regulation – Foxx said he expects compliance.
“One of reasons we take great pains not to be so prescriptive” is because the technology is “dynamic” and changing fast, he said, so the government needs to be “flexible”.
New US regulations announced for self-driving carsRegulators and the industry see self-driving cars as potentially much more safe than conventional vehicles. Those are vehicles that can take full control of driving. Some states have created exemptions to encourage testing, while others have signaled that they might restrict autonomous vehicles.
The NHTSA said it plans to propose a requirement that automakers report to regulators on the results of their testing of self-driving vehicle systems. It will likely be up to the next president and Congress to act on the proposals. The guidelines in question seek federal oversight of some ethical issues that include two given obstacles that a self-driving vehicle should be programmed to hit, should a collision be unavoidable.
So far, Tesla has not issued a statement regarding the government policies. When there’s a human behind the wheel, state laws apply.
The policy also addresses how recalls of automated vehicles should be handled, if they are ever necessary.
In April, Google formed a lobby with Ford and Uber dubbed the Self-Driving Coalition for Safer Streets calling for a set of driverless vehicle rules by the federal government, rather than a state-by-state approach.
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IHS Markit analyst Jeremy Carlson said data sharing could be a sensitive issue.
