OMB Approves NHTSA Automated Driving System NPRM

Yesterday the OMB’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) announced that it had approved a notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) from the DOT’s National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA) concerning “Occupant Protection for Automated Driving Systems”.

The 2019 Fall Unified Agenda entry for this rulemaking notes:

“This action proposes to amend crashworthiness regulations that may be necessary to facilitate the certification of motor vehicles equipped without driver controls. The agency published a Federal Register notice on January 18, 2018, requesting comment on existing regulatory barriers that may block the introduction and certification of ADS-equipped vehicles, particularly those without human controls. In response to comments received from the January notice, the agency initiated this NPRM to begin the rulemaking process. NHTSA will consider comments received from this notice, agency research, stakeholder engagement, and internal agency analysis to remove crashworthiness-related regulatory barriers.”

I wrote about the 2018 request for comments.