U.S. Legislative News

NHTSA Publishes Proposed Amendments to Safety Standards for Headlights

The National Highway and Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) is requesting comments on newly proposed amendments to Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard No. 108, Lamps, Reflective Devices, and Associated Equipment, that would permit the certification of adaptive driving beam headlighting systems. Toyota petitioned the agency to amend the rule so manufacturers can bring adaptive driving beam (ADB) technology to market in the United States.

ADB technology modifies headlamp beams using cameras, sensors, and other hardware to provide more illumination while reducing glare on other vehicles. Studies have shown that glare contributes to the number of collisions and pedestrian deaths in dark conditions. ADB headlamps are able to detect oncoming and preceding vehicles and adjust to provide less illumination on occupied roadways and more illumination on unoccupied ones.

The proposed amendments would allow manufacturers to equip vehicles with ADB technology so long as they pass required performance tests and abide by visibility and safety standards set forth by NHTSA. ADB systems are currently available in foreign markets and have been permitted and regulated in Europe for several years.

To read the notice of proposed rulemaking on the integration of ADB systems, please click here.

Is the Moratorium on Self-Driving Shuttles Being Lifted?

Officials at the Department of Transportation (DOT) may be changing their position about the moratorium on issuing new waivers for autonomous shuttles to operate in the U.S. Following several deadly crashes involving self-driving vehicles and pressure from government watchdog groups, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) announced in mid-July that it wouldn’t be approving new plans for any non-compliant shuttles to operate until DOT completed an internal review, and the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) finished its investigations into the crashes.

The moratorium halted some states, localities, and companies with multi-million-dollar investments from operating shuttles they in some cases already contracted to run. The city of Gainesville, Fla. has a three-year, $2.6 million contract with TransDev to operate a self-driving shuttle, but until NHTSA issues the city waivers, researchers are on standby.

In October, senior DOT officials reportedly began telling waiver applicants to file new requests and that a new application process with more questions would be coming soon.

Some of the expected changes at NHTSA may involve a team overseeing the waiver application process as opposed to a single individual. Additional information has not yet been released about the moratorium or the new process for issuing waivers, but stakeholders are keeping their ears to the ground.

NTSB Calls on State and Federal Agencies to Address Drug-Impaired Driving

An investigation conducted by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) found that a combination of marijuana and two times the prescribed amount of clonazepam, a sedative, were present in the bloodstream of a 20-year-old Texan when he crashed his pickup into a bus on U.S. Highway 83, killing 13.

In a news release this month, NTSB Chairman Sumwalt wrote, “the pickup driver in this crash made terrible choices with tragic consequences, but the rising tide of drug-impaired driving did not begin with this driver, and it will not end with him,” before calling on additional tools and training to help law enforcement identify individuals driving under the influence, “regardless of the impairing drug they’re using.”

As part of their report, the NTSB recommended that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) develop a common standard of practice for drug toxicology testing, including the circumstances under which tests should be conducted, a minimum set of drugs for which to test, and cutoff values for reporting the results, that can be disseminated to state officials. NTSB also recommended that NHTSA continue to evaluate best practices and countermeasures found to be most effective in reducing fatalities, injuries, and crashes involving drug-impaired drivers.

This comes at a time when states are continuing to legalize the recreational use of marijuana, the opioid epidemic has shown little to no signs of regression, and drug-impaired driving is on the rise.