US Removes Human Control Requirement For Fully Automated Vehicles

A visitor takes a selfie inside the Cruise Origin autonomous vehicle jointly created by Honda and General Motors during its presentation in San Francisco, California, USA on January 21, 2020. REUTERS/Stephen Lam

WASHINGTON, March 10 – U.S. regulators on Thursday released final rules removing the need for automated vehicle manufacturers to equip fully autonomous vehicles with manual controls to meet crash standards.

Automakers and tech companies have faced significant hurdles in deploying automated driving system (ADS) vehicles without human oversight due to safety standards written decades ago that assume humans are in control.

Last month, General Motors Co (GM.N) and its autonomous driving technology arm, Cruise, petitioned the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) for permission to build and deploy a self-driving car without human control, such as a steering wheel. or brake pedals. .

The rules are revising rules that suggest that cars “will always have a driver’s seat, steering wheel and associated steering column, or only one front outboard passenger seat.”

“For vehicles dedicated exclusively to driving ADS, manual driving control is logically unnecessary,” the agency said.

The new rules, first proposed in March 2020, emphasize that automated vehicles must provide the same level of occupant protection as human-driven vehicles.

“As the driver transforms from human to machine in ADS-equipped vehicles, the need to keep people safe remains the same and must be integrated from the outset,” said NHTSA Deputy Administrator Stephen Cliff.

The NHTSA rule states that children should not occupy what is traditionally called the “driver’s seat”, given that the driver’s seat is not designed to protect children in the event of an accident, but if a child is in that seat, the vehicle does not immediately need to be stopped.

The NHTSA said that existing regulations do not currently prohibit the deployment of automated vehicles if they have manual driving controls, and as it continues to consider changing other safety standards, manufacturers may still have to petition the NHTSA to exempt them from selling their vehicles equipped with ADS.

Reporting by David Shepardson; Editing by Karisma Singh

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