My first experience with an autonomous vehicle was in Germany in 2008. As Administrator of
the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), I visited several European auto manufacturers along with other senior officials. At one company, the host placed us all in an autonomous vehicle, with me landing in the driver’s seat. After the host instructed me to not interact with the vehicle at all and admonished me to not “panic,” we were on our way.
As the vehicle headed out on the public roads and through the local town, we were all both shocked and terrified. I desperately wanted to depress the brake pedal, but after several uneventful minutes passed, everyone began to relax. Eventually, I got so comfortable that I began turning my body completely around to take photos of the landmarks out of the driver’s side window.
When we returned to the U.S., I gave a speech proclaiming that the moment of autonomous transportation had arrived. I put up a slide with a photo of my infant son and confidently predicted that he would never experience the right-of-passage of having to pass his driver’s license exam.
A decade later, I returned to the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) to serve under President Trump as the Administrator of the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA). While technology had continued to advance during that time, autonomous vehicles were still not prevalent on our highways across the nation. At FHWA, we were focused on the infrastructure side of the equation to support automated vehicles – signing, striping, and data communication among vehicles and our infrastructure. Yet, tech and auto leaders assured us that, while infrastructure improvements were welcomed, additional development, testing, and evaluation of autonomous transportation systems in real-world scenarios were necessary.
Now, at 17 years old, my son has obtained his learner’s permit and deployment of autonomous vehicles is still extremely limited.
So, what has been holding back full adoption of autonomous systems? A technology that I had experienced back in 2008 is only visible in the U.S. on roads in a few States with restricted geographic deployment. In the air, autonomous aircraft are also limited and operate only under highly specific conditions. On rail lines, automated trains do not operate on mainline track at all.
Under the realization that government regulators would never be able to keep up with private sector innovation, the default decision – with the best of intentions – has been no decision. Government issued studies, reports, guidance, frameworks, and other non-regulatory documents – all with significant public input – have tried to keep pace with technology, address operational and safety considerations, and support deployment of autonomous systems. However, now that autonomous systems have significantly matured, it is clear that these technologies do not neatly fit within the DOT’s existing regulatory structure. A lack of clarity and broad Federal regulatory action could ultimately be the culprit undermining the adoption of these technologies.
State governments now find themselves filling in the policy gaps. Individual States are developing policies that could have broad impacts and may eventually conflict with those of neighboring legislatures. Additionally, State law enforcement leaders in various States are now being forced to determine for themselves how to manage incidents involving an autonomous car or truck.
Where government once was viewed only as a hinderance to technology expansion, now many industry leaders feel that a regulatory “floor” could be a key accelerator. Across the modes, private sector executives see government decision-making as a catalyst for three key needs – better data, increased capital, and improving public confidence.
More and better data is a necessity for autonomous growth in all aspects of transportation. On the roads, cars and trucks need to test in real-world scenarios. Advancements in AI learning is a significant improvement and can result in faster triaging of issues, but hallucinations and mistakes exist. Actual driving data is critical to solving the long tail problems and boosting confidence in the systems.
Investors also seek the imprimatur of government. A lack of regulation in industry eliminates a potential key differentiator between companies. Regulations that create certainty open up additional investment opportunities, as the companies that can meet minimum standards will be able to tout that achievement to investors.
Finally, and most importantly, regulations establishing minimum standards will increase public trust. Safety of the transportation system is paramount and Federal and State transportation leaders understand it is their most consequential responsibility. However, fear of not achieving the perfect regulatory solution should not lead to a dearth of regulatory action. Performance-based requirements for cars and trucks, in addition to aviation and other modes, may allow for improved levels of automation by companies to achieve safety outcomes. Performance-based requirements may also generate public confidence by allowing end-users to know that a particular autonomous system has met the government’s requirements and that government leaders are testing and watching.
The regulatory structure for every mode of transportation was developed decades ago. Across the modes, government set standards were never expected to eliminate all possible safety incidents. For example, NHTSA’s Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard 208, occupant crash protection, was never intended to eliminate frontal collisions on the roads, rather reduce the number of fatalities and serious injuries to occupants should a crash occur. A safety standard can be representative of the risk and create thresholds for safety.
Albeit slow, progress is being made. An autonomous aviation leader recently told me that the current Administration is moving more quickly than he has ever seen in decades of work in the field. Meanwhile, my oldest daughter has been living in Austin and regularly riding in an Uber Waymo autonomous vehicle without a second thought. If the U.S. hopes to keep pace with China and other countries advancing technology in transportation, the moment is now – 17 years after my first autonomous vehicle ride on German roads – for regulatory action and performance-based standards to finally unlock the potential for autonomous systems in transportation.
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