In contrast, in the 2013 NHTSA Policy, the NHTSA opted to merely issue recommendations. In 2011, for example, the NHTSA issued 49 CFR Parts 571 and 585 requiring electronic stability control (ESC) systems-a level 1 technology-on passenger cars, multipurpose passenger vehicles, trucks, and some buses.
These levels can serve as a basis for either binding regulations or optional recommendations concerning the evolution of autonomous vehicles. These levels are designed to track advances in autonomy in an organized fashion, stagger research goals, and facilitate the promulgation of rules for each level.
In it, the NHTSA set a path for future research and laid out a framework classifying five “levels” of autonomous capability. In 2013, the US Department of Transportation-through the NHTSA-issued its Preliminary Statement of Policy Concerning Automated Vehicles (“NHTSA Policy”). This Act modestly calls for grants for autonomous vehicle research, for the Comptroller General of the United States to prepare reports on the autonomous transportation technology policy developed by public entities, to assess organizational challenges, and to recommend implementation paths for autonomous transportation technology, applications, and polices. On December 4, 2015, the “Surface Transportation Reauthorization and Reform Act of 2015” was signed into law as Public Law 114-94. Since 2013, only two federal bills have been introduced that touch upon autonomous vehicles, and only one has become law. Thus far, the agent of change has not been Congress but, rather, the Department of Transportation and, specifically, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (“NHTSA”). With the recent snowballing momentum of autonomous vehicle technological innovation, however, the federal government has realized that it needs to re-evaluate these rules.
#Readwrite autonomous car landscape drivers#
Although the statutes in Title 49, Subtitle VI of the US Code and the regulations in Title 49, Subtitle B, Chapter V of the Code of Federal Regulations fill thousands of pages with federal motor vehicle standards, many-if not all-of those standards were drafted with human drivers in mind. On the federal level in the United States, there is very little regulation related to the testing and operation of autonomous vehicles. Federal regulations: The NHTSA and the front line of rapid regulatory change Current Regulatory framework in the United States a. For these companies, the question should not be “how many regulatory hurdles do we have to jump?” but rather “how can we most effectively create a regulatory environment in which we can succeed?” 2. For companies already testing self-driving vehicles or looking to enter the market, the lack of national consensus represents a chance to play a role in the crafting of necessary regulations. This limited regulatory landscape offers immense opportunity.
As autonomous vehicle technology advances, however, this sparse regulatory response-state and federal-is poised to change. The current state statutes are not identical – they have different requirements for the testing and operation of autonomous vehicles. The legislation that exists primarily relates to the testing of autonomous vehicles. At the state level, only a handful of states have passed legislation related to autonomous vehicles. Federally, the United States government has merely called for research on the impact autonomous vehicles will have on the transportation system and released a framework to classify the technology used in autonomous vehicles. For autonomous vehicles to move from concept and testing to part of everyday reality, a comprehensive regulatory framework must be put in place – a framework that, to date, has been conspicuously absent.
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