The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), the American authority in charge of road safety, asks companies to report accidents to it during the day involving advanced driver assistance features and autonomous driving systems. This US-wide regulatory change was announced on Tuesday, June 29, 2021 by the NHTSA. It applies to advanced driver assistance systems from SAE level 2 up to level 5.
Identify common patterns
Concretely, companies will be required to report accidents as soon as the “system was activated during or immediately before the accident”, specifies the NHTSA in a press release. Accidents involving death or injuries treated in hospital, a towed vehicle, airbag deployment, or the involvement of a pedestrian or cyclist must be reported. Companies are also required to submit monthly reports on all accidents with injury or property damage involving automated systems, adds the NHTSA.
With this data, NHTSA explains that it wants to identify potential safety problems and the effects resulting from the use of these technologies. “Access to data from autonomous driving systems can show whether there are common patterns in accidents involving driverless vehicles or systematic operating problems”, further justifies the NHTSA, which also mentions a need for transparency.
Advanced driver assistance systems with little supervision
This decision will affect companies like Tesla or Waymo, the Alphabet subsidiary which develops autonomous vehicles. But also all the start-ups and companies which have decided to carry out tests of autonomous vehicles in the United States and all the manufacturers who offer advanced driving assistance systems on their vehicles. This major change signals a stricter position taken by the regulator and also highlights the need for transparency regarding the use of these vehicles and their usefulness.
More and more autonomous vehicles are deployed in the United States, a country in which regulations fluctuate from state to state. Often tests concerning autonomous vehicles are strictly supervised, unlike advanced driver assistance systems which are often in a regulatory gray zone, comments the Washington Post. A situation that allows these vehicles to avoid undergoing a thorough examination when they are involved in an accident. This situation is now evolving under the impetus of the NHTSA.
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