Transportation Department to Streamline Regulations for Self-Driving Car Manufacturers

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) will streamline an exemption process to accelerate the development of autonomous vehicles.

The agency’s efforts will focus on the Part 555 exemption process, which allows manufacturers to sell as many as 2,500 vehicles per year that do not fully comply with federal safety standards if manufacturers demonstrate that the vehicles are as safe as compliant vehicles and that the exemption is in the public interest, the Department of Transportation (DOT) said in a Friday (June 13) press release.

The process allows exemptions for vehicles that, for example, lack steering wheels, driver-operated brakes or rearview mirrors, according to the release.

U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean P. Duffy said in the release that the regulation “has been rightly criticized for taking years.”

“We’ve streamlined this process to remove another barrier to transportation innovation in the United States, to ensure American AV companies can out-compete international rivals, and maintain safety,” Duffy said.

To streamline the process, NHTSA will publish guidance that will help manufacturers supply the agency with the information it needs to evaluate their application and adopt a “more dynamic and flexible approach to evaluating and overseeing exemptions,” NHTSA Chief Counsel Peter Simshauser wrote in a letter to stakeholders.

“Together, NHTSA expects these steps to improve the efficiency of the Part 555 exemption program substantially, significantly reducing processing times for applications,” Simshauser said in the letter. “With these improvements, NHTSA anticipates reaching decisions on most exemption requests within months rather than years.”

Duffy said in April that the DOT was streamlining two regulations at that time and that the agency would take additional actions in the future to prioritize the safety of autonomous vehicles, remove regulatory barriers to innovation and enable commercial deployment of autonomous vehicles.

At that time, Duffy said NHTSA would streamline the reporting required in the case of crashes, to sharpen the focus on critical safety information, and expand a program that allows companies to operate non-compliant vehicles on U.S. roads.

“This Administration understands that we’re in a race with China to out-innovate, and the stakes couldn’t be higher,” Duffy said in an April press release. “As part of DOT’s innovation agenda, our new framework will slash red tape and move us closer to a single national standard that spurs innovation and prioritizes safety.”