DOT Vows to Help Enable Self-Driving Cars

The U.S. Dept. of Transportation vows within six months to develop guidelines for standardized policies governing the use of self-driving vehicles on public roads.

The White House also is proposing a 10-year, $4 billion program for pilot projects to test such cars under real-world conditions. DOT estimates autonomous vehicles could slash highway fatalities involving human error by 94%.

Developers have been keen to clarify performance expectations for automatic cars. Current federal safety standards, for example, don’t allow vehicles to operate without a driver on public streets. Many states don’t allow self-driving cars, and those that do have varying requirements about their presence on public roadways.

DOT says that, within six months, it will partner with carmakers and other interested stakeholder to develop standard performance guidelines for automatic vehicles, including a model policy for states to consider. The department also promises to ease the ability to carmakers to test new features that may conflict with existing federal safety standards.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration issued its preliminary policy statement on autonomous vehicles in 2013. The planned actions described by DOT update that document.