WASHINGTON — The new head of the government’s road safety agency says it will step up its efforts to understand the risks of automated vehicle technology so it can decide what regulations are needed to protect drivers, passengers and pedestrians.
In an interview Wednesday, Steven Cliff, who was confirmed as head of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration last month, said the agency is reviewing crash data recently reported by automakers and tech companies.
Any new regulations imposed by the NHTSA would address what critics say is urgently needed to address the growing use of driver-assisted systems on US roads. The systems have been associated with fatalities and serious injuries, but they also have huge potential for accident prevention. There are no federal regulations that directly apply to self-driving vehicles or vehicles with partially automated driver assistance systems such as Tesla’s Autopilot.
Before developing new federal standards, Cliff said, NHTSA wants to better understand how driver assistance and autonomous technology should perform.
Cliff spoke to The Associated Press on Wednesday in his first on-the-record interview since his Senate confirmation.
He said when he first joined the agency in February 2021, he was surprised to find that the NHTSA had no data on automated vehicle accidents. As a result, Cliff said, he challenged the agency to demand such reporting. Last month, the NHTSA released data from July 2021 to May, which concluded that automated vehicles were involved in nearly 400 accidents.
Cliff warned that while he believes federal standards are needed to regulate driver technology, he wants to avoid rushing to embrace new regulations that could jeopardize safety.
“Every time we put a regulation on the books, we not only have to define what standard that technology must be held to, but we also have to have an objective way to measure the performance of the system to make sure it actually complies. regulations,” he said from his office at the US Department of Transportation headquarters in Washington.
The agency, Cliff said, is also working on performance standards for automatic emergency braking, which it plans to require for all new passenger cars and heavy trucks. The braking systems, which can detect and stop pedestrians, other vehicles and obstacles, show great potential to help curb rising traffic deaths in the US, he said.
NHTSA, he said, will determine metrics for how the braking systems detect objects to ensure the systems respond appropriately.
“That’s part of one of the standards we’re introducing,” he said.
Cliff declined to discuss details of the regulations that might come.
“It’s important for us to better understand the data coming from those incidents in a technical context,” he said. “I think it’s important to act fast, but not so fast that we’re wrong.”
Of the nearly 400 crashes reported by manufacturers, Teslas were involved in more than all other automakers combined. But Cliff noted that Tesla has driver-assisted technology that works on nearly all of its approximately 830,000 vehicles on U.S. roads, making neat comparisons with other automakers difficult. The company also offers near-instantaneous wireless crash reporting, so it receives data faster than other automakers.
Since Cliff’s arrival, the agency has stepped up enforcement efforts targeting Tesla, including a push for a dozen recalls since early 2021. The agency is investigating why Teslas working on Autopilot appear to collide with emergency vehicles parked along highways. And it has received more than 750 consumer complaints of Teslas breaking unexpectedly for no apparent reason.
At the same time, Cliff added, Tesla has been working with NHTSA since arriving at the agency.
“I think we’re working well with them,” he said, “and when we identified risks, they took action, and it’s appropriate.”
Cliff, whose background is in chemistry and air pollution regulation and with little experience in car safety, takes over the agency at a critical time. The agency estimates that nearly 43,000 people died on U.S. roads last year, the highest number in 16 years.
Safety advocates say the NHTSA has become more aggressive in regulating automakers since Cliff’s arrival of the California Air Resources Board, the state’s pollution regulator. Cliff, who first joined the California board of directors in 2008 as an air pollution specialist, rose to the rank of deputy executive officer. Years earlier, he received a bachelor’s degree and doctorate in chemistry from the University of California, San Diego.
He admits that he had to become a quick study on car safety. But he said assessing the science and data is similar to the work he did in California.
In December, Cliff told the Senate Commerce Committee that he would work to pass regulations, such as those urging seat belt use, and implement mandates under the new federal infrastructure law to reduce drink-driving.
He said he believes automatic emergency braking in new vehicles should help reduce fatalities and that the agency will adopt a “safe systems approach” to stem the deaths. Those approaches may include road design and reductions in speed limits.
In addition, he said, the NHTSA is trying to understand why black Americans are more likely to die in crashes than other groups.
“In some cases,” Cliff said, “it has a lot to do with the infrastructure, but also with the vehicles themselves. So improving the new fleet is part of the solution, but it’s also important that we train drivers. ”