Washington, D.C. – As more driverless cars roam the nation’s roadways, a group of lawmakers are calling upon the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) to reconsider its troubling position not to require more robust safety data from autonomous vehicle manufacturers.
U.S. Reps. Kevin Mullin (CA-15) and Anna Eshoo (CA-16) co-led a letter to NHTSA from 10 members of Congress whose districts have seen an expansion of autonomous vehicle (AV) testing and passenger service.
AVs have been operating on the streets of San Francisco, California, Austin, Texas, and elsewhere around the country for more than a year, and, in California, passenger service is expanding to Los Angeles and San Mateo counties. While AV companies are required to report when one of their cars is involved in a crash, they are not required to report other types of safety incidents such as when they shut down on the road, obstructing emergency responders, or cause traffic hazards. They are also not required to share the size of their current fleet or vehicle miles traveled, making it impossible to compare safety records among companies or against manually-operated vehicles.
The lawmakers’ request is a follow up to a congressional letter sent in September 2023 in which NHTSA was urged to improve mandatory data reporting requirements for AVs. So far NHTSA has declined to create additional safety reporting requirements, explaining that it relies on a variety of third-party data sources, including social media posts. The agency has also stated that it intends to ask AV companies to voluntarily share information about non-crash related incidents, but it has yet to release that plan. However, the authors of this letter believe a voluntary framework is not enough because car companies would have little incentive to participate.
“We believe NHTSA’s inaction hamstrings policymakers who are dealing with AV issues on the ground, threatens the safety of pedestrians, human drivers and first responders, and jeopardizes the general public trust needed for widespread adoption of this potentially transformative technology,” the lawmakers wrote.
“To be clear, we are champions of innovation and are excited by the major strides that AVs have made in recent years. We believe that AV technology has the potential to revolutionize motor vehicle safety and lead to a steep decline in traffic deaths,” the lawmakers wrote. “Official, transparent, comparable, and nationwide data are critical to ensuring AVs are deployed safely. … This data is essential for cities and local jurisdictions to make informed decisions about how they work with AV companies for safe deployments. This data gap is detrimental to both the American public and companies who seek broader adoption of their services by consumers.”
Read the full letter here. The letter was also signed by Reps. Nanette Barragán (CA-44), Salud Carbajal (CA-24), André Carson, (IN-7), Mark DeSaulnier (CA-10), Lloyd Doggett (TX-37), Barbara Lee (CA-12), Nancy Pelosi (CA-11), and Scott Peters (CA-50).