US Takes Aim at Autonomous Car Mishaps in Safety Rulemaking Push

The Trump administration is working to develop new safety requirements governing how autonomous vehicles behave on the road in a bid to address mishaps that have marred the early track record of self-driving cars.

Officials aim to finalize the new requirements before the end of President Donald Trump’s current term, Jonathan Morrison, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s top official, said in an interview. NHTSA initially plans to seek comment from the public and industry stakeholders with the goal of identifying “behavioral competencies” for autonomous vehicles, with tests to measure performance.

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The goal is to craft objective safety standards “so that a manufacturer who is producing the vehicle can know with certainty whether or not the vehicle meets the requirements,” Morrison said.

The effort comes after a series of recent incidents highlighting how self-driving cars can struggle to handle situations human drivers commonly encounter. Alphabet Inc.’s Waymo — the leading operator of paid robotaxi rides in the U.S. — recently recalled thousands of vehicles and suspended freeway operations after its cars drove through construction zones at speed. The company has also faced scrutiny after its vehicles repeatedly failed to slow or stop for school buses.

Last week, Morrison called on self-driving vehicle companies to fix problems that have led to their cars interfering with first responders. NHTSA plans to meet with developers about the issue in the coming weeks, he said.

“When somebody’s arriving to an emergency scene, they’re not bringing extra people to drive the vehicle off,” Morrison said. “We want to set a bit of a mark that ‘no, this is not acceptable,’ and this is where we are going to be having discussions.”

Related: Companies Must Address Self-Driving Car Interference With Emergency Vehicles, NHTSA Says

The push to address mishaps is part of a broader effort by the agency to help self-driving cars reach the road in larger numbers, in part by removing safety requirements that were written with human drivers in mind. Last month, the agency proposed removing a mandate for manual brake pedals in driverless vehicles, a step that would help Tesla Inc. introduce its Cybercab robotaxi, which the Elon Musk-led company has said it aims to deploy without traditional human controls.

“When it comes to vehicles that are designed to never be operated by a human, what we’re looking to do with this rulemaking is to establish those same performance requirements but get rid of the design-restricting elements,” said Morrison.

NHTSA is looking to remove or amend other requirements of traditional cars that Morrison says autonomous vehicles don’t need, such as mirrors.

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“Does it make sense for a vehicle that is designed never to be operated by human to have mirrors? No. That’s pretty common sense,” he said.

Morrison also said that while steering wheels are not required under federal auto safety standards, the rules do contain “some indirect references to to the steering wheel” that may need adjustment for autonomous vehicles.

Top photo: Waymo cars at a Waymo facility in San Francisco. Photographer: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images. Bloomberg.