US revises passenger safety rules for autonomous vehicles
DETROIT
(AP) — The U.S. government is coming out with new regulations aimed at
changing automotive passenger safety standards that could be barriers to
autonomous vehicles.
The National Highway Traffic Safety
Administration says it’s seeking comment on proposed updated standards
to account for vehicles that don’t have manual controls such as steering
wheels or brake pedals. Autonomous vehicles also may not have drivers
sitting in the traditional driver’s seat.
The proposal would
revise requirements and test procedures, the agency said in a statement
Tuesday. It also would clarify that passenger protection standard
standards don’t apply to vehicles made specifically to carry goods and
not people.
“We do not want regulations enacted long before the
development of automated technologies to present an unintended and
unnecessary barrier against innovation and improved highway safety,”
NHTSA Acting Administrator James Owens said in the statement.
The
proposed regulation would apply front passenger seat protection
standards to the traditional driver’s seat of an autonomous vehicle,
rather than safety requirements that are specific to the driver’s seat,
the agency said. “The rationale discussed in this notice is that an
occupant should not need protection from a steering control system if
none exists in the vehicle,” the regulation said.
The regulations
would account for vehicles that operate autonomously but also can be
controlled by a human in the driver’s seat, NHTSA said.
NHTSA says
in the regulation that much of the safety potential of automated
driving systems is “unsubstantiated and the impacts unknown,” but it
still believes the best path forward is to remove barriers.
Jason
Levine, executive director of the nonprofit Center for Auto Safety, an
advocacy group, said NHTSA shouldn’t remove regulatory safeguards for a
technology that is not proven “and in fact may be unsafe.” He said in a
statement that the government should focus on existing safety measures
“not corporate giveaways desired by lobbyists and questioned by
experts.”