The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration issued a notice in February that seeks opinions, comments and answers from stakeholders on issues bordering on the safe deployment and usage of autonomous driving systems in commercial motor vehicles.
The DOT recently expanded on its voluntary AV guidance, known as “Ensuring American Leadership in Automated Vehicle Technologies: Automated Vehicles 4.0,” which emphasizes prioritizing the safety and security of AVs, promoting innovation by being technology neutral and ensuring a consistent regulatory approach on the federal level. This policy is being thrust as the blueprint of the upcoming federal AV safety framework.
NHTSA in 2021 issued a standing general order on crash reporting for ADS in which it mandated vehicle manufacturers and operators to report any crashes related to ADS in a timely and transparent manner. Consequently, NHTSA released a report on ADS crash data in June 2022, which detailed the reporting entity, incident scene, crash description and post-crash analysis. Such efforts on policy creation from federal agencies shows that they are feeling the pressure from stakeholders to evolve regulation and handle the question of safety in a more comprehensive way.
