Coalition Urges Senate to Go Slow on Rules for Self-Driving Cars

The U.S. Senate should reject a bill that would ease safety considerations for developers of autonomous vehicles, says a coalition of 27 public-interest groups.

The loose alliance asserts that the technology behind self-driving cars isn’t reliable enough yet to be permitted on public roads.

Existing law allows manufacturers to exempt many as 2,500 cars per year for two years. But companies may do so only if they can prove the vehicles are at least as safe as those that meet current regulations.

Automotive News says a 2017 Rand Corp. study turned up only eight such requests to the National Highway Safety Administration for safety exemptions over the past 23 years. The report says most applications were denied because petitioners couldn’t prove a proposed feature was safer.

The proposed AV START Act would allow carmakers to each sell as many as 80,000 autonomous vehicles over three years that don’t comply with all existing safety standards.

Carmakers want the broader exemption in part to prevent states from developing their own patchwork of inconsistent laws governing automated cars. The law also would shield developers from having their work banned outright because of a single fatality involving an autonomous vehicle.

The coalition dismisses the “bogus claims of urgency” by some developers. The group wants the AV START Act modified to sharply limit the sale of any autonomous cars until NHTSA develops specific safety standards for such vehicles.​​