Law & Order

NHTSA Seeks Input on Regulating Vehicles With Automated Driving Systems

By SEMA Washington, D.C., Staff

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) issued an advance notice of proposed rulemaking (ANPRM) on the removal of unnecessary regulatory barriers to the safe introduction of vehicles with automated driving systems (ADS) in the United States. NHTSA seeks comment on identifying and addressing regulatory barriers to the deployment of ADS vehicles posed by certain existing Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards (FMVSS). NHTSA is also seeking suggestions on approaches that could be used to measure compliance with the FMVSS for vehicles without conventional controls such as steering wheels and brake pedals. 

The ANPRM builds on NHTSA’s ongoing efforts to identify and address regulatory barriers to ADS technologies, including a previous January 2018 request for comments on this topic. NHTSA intends to issue two additional documents to remove barriers in the crashworthiness FMVSSs (the 200-series standards) and address issues in the FMVSSs pertaining to telltales, indicators, and warnings in ADS–DVs.

Comments are due by July 29, 2019.  For more information, contact Stuart Gosswein at stuartg@sema.org.