Deep Dive Into House's SELF DRIVE Act

The House Energy and Commerce Committee boasts on its website that the US House of Representatives has passed the committee's autonomous vehicle (AV) legislation, HR 3388, the SELF DRIVE Act - standing for "Safely Ensuring Lives Future Deployment and Research 4 In Vehicle Evolution Act." (I refer to SELF DRIVE Act and the legislation interchangeably.)

Not only did the legislation pass, but the vote was UNANIMOUS. Unanimous = bipartisan + everyone from one end of the political spectrum to the other.


What is not included

The SELF DRIVE Act is carefully drafted to avoid controversy, so it leaves out quite a bit. Whole sectors of transportation are expressly not included - trucks and buses, be they local or intercity, of whatever size. No freight or transit. In statutory parlance, no commercial vehicles.

Federal/State balance of responsibilities

One limit that is made explicit in the SELF DRIVE Act  is "The Secretary may not condition deployment or testing of highly automated vehicles on review of safety assessment certifications."

The legislation codifies for highly vehicles autonomous (HAVs) the existing federal/state division of authority over vehicle regulation. The House asserts power over safety, testing, and deployment. The word preemption is used. In a nutshell, preemption means here that the legislation claims federal authority and that it declares outright that states are banned from imposing such standards unless they are identical to the federal standard.

States are expressly permitted to continue regulating motor vehicle dealerships and "registration, licensing, driving education and training, insurance, law enforcement, crash investigations, safety and emissions inspections, congestion management of vehicles on the street within a State or political subdivision of a State, or traffic unless the law or regulation is an unreasonable restriction on the design, construction, or performance of highly automated vehicles, automated driving systems, or components of automated driving systems." The interpretation of what constitutes an "unreasonable restriction" will be left to the courts and generally the US Department of Transportation (USDOT) to decide.

Requirements for manufacturers - getting into SAL weeds here

The House - and very possibly, soon, the Senate - imposes requirements on vehicle manufacturers. These cover safety assessment letters (SALs), damage reporting, and cybersecurity and privacy plans.

What are SALs? This is where matters get somewhat complicated and where next week's expected update of the NHTSA Autonomous Vehicle Policy, first issued in September 2016 under President Obama and USDOT Secretary Foxx, becomes quite important. These came out this week and I am reading through them now. The key words in the new NHTSA AV guidelines are "voluntary" and "encourage." More in another post.

The SAL in the current NHTSA Autonomous Vehicle Policy is a 15-page letter with all sorts of information for manufacturers to supply. The SELF DRIVE Act provides that the USDOT has 24 months before it is required to "issue a final rule requiring the submission of safety assessment certifications regarding how safety is being addressed by each entity developing a highly automated vehicle or an automated driving system." In the interim:

[S]afety assessment letters shall be submitted to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration as contemplated by the Federal Automated Vehicles Policy issued in September 2016, or any successor guidance issued on highly automated vehicles requiring a safety assessment letter. [Emphasis and link added.]

The SELF DRIVE Act  warns that USDOT may NOT, however, "condition deployment or testing of highly automated vehicles on review of safety assessment certifications."


At least for now, any SALs should include, according to the current Federal Automated Vehicles Policy issued in September 2016, "[the name, title, and signature of an authorized company official and the date. This would be repeated for each area covered in the letter. This is intended to ensure appropriate transparency, awareness, and oversight within the submitting organization."

The signature provides some accountability, even if it not written upon penalty of perjury. The upcoming policy update could alter this policy.

Presumably, any Senate legislation and final bill for both houses to consider will integrate the new NHTSA AV guidelines. Congress will also be free to depart from such a policy if it so wishes; however, with broad bipartisan agreement in both houses, there is a big question whether Congress will wish to jeopardize this beautiful situation with any controversy.

USDOT timeline

The legislation imposes a timeline on the USDOT to research, plan, and initiate rulemaking that addresses self-certifications, cybersecurity, safety, and what information must be supplied to consumers.

These provisions include:

• 180 days - Initiate or continue review of federal motor vehicle safety standards (FMVSS) 
• 18 months - Initiate rulemaking
• 12 months - A rulemaking and safety priority plan
• 24 months - Final rule for safety assessment letters - The SELF DRIVE Act would give NHTSA the authority to prescribe these rules. More on that in post about completely voluntary guidelines issued this week by NHTSA. (Coming attraction: One senator called the new guidelines "anemic.")
• 36 months - Complete research to determine how to inform consumers about capabilities and limitations of PARTIAL and highly automated vehicles. A rulemaking is supposed to follow this.

Exemption number - HUGE increase - with some requirements for manufacturers

The SELF DRIVE Act would give industry its long-expressed wish to greatly increase the number of vehicles per manufacturer that may be exempted from the FMVSS from 2,500 to 100,000. However, this number will go only to 25,000 in the first year and then go up incrementally over three years to 100,000. The legislation provides for a database to be created with information about exempted vehicles, but not to include personal information about any vehicle owner.

In turn, manufacturers are required to create cybersecurity and  privacy plans, and they must submit crash information. There is no sale, lease, or other introduction of AVs - partial or highly - into interstate commerce without those plans. By the way, interstate commerce does not actually have to involve any transaction across state lines.

Few demands on PARTIAL AVs

The SELF DRIVE Act mainly concerns AVs that do not rely at all on human operators, but there are a few provisions that relate to partial AVs. These refer to (1) informing consumers about capabilities and limitations of partial AVs; (2) cybersecurity plans that manufacturers must create; and (2) privacy plans that manufacturers must create.

Kitchen sink advisory council

Yes, the SELF DRIVE Act does allow for subcommittees, BUT the advisory council it calls for establishing throws in together every major challenge that AVs present. These are:

• Access for people with disabilities, older adults, and people underserved by traditional public transit; 
• Cybersecurity;
• Vehicles and equipment recalls;
• Protected sharing of information among manufacturers relating to crashes and near misses;
• Labor and employment;
• Environmental impacts;
• Consumer privacy;
• Cabin safety;
• Testing and deployment in rural areas; and
• Independent verification and validation procedures.

Couple of things tossed into the legislation as well do concern motor vehicles, but not necessarily AVs. These are a phased-in requirement for back seat alarms and safety and performance standards for headlamps.