Innovation, Safety Sought In Self-Driving Car Guidelines

Saying they were doing something no other government has done, Obama administration officials rolled out a plan Tuesday they say will enable auto makers to get self-driving cars onto the road without compromising safety.

In drawing up 112 pages of guidelines, the government tried to be vague enough to allow innovation while at the same time making sure that car makers, tech companies and ride-hailing firms put safety first as the cars are developed.

Only time will tell whether the mission was accomplished, but the document generally was praised by businesses and analysts as good guidance in a field that’s evolving faster than anyone imagined just a few years ago.

“How do you regulate a complex software system?” asked Timothy Carone, a Notre Dame University professor who has written about the future of automation. “They want to allow innovation, but they want to be very proscriptive in managing the risk side of this. In my mind, they’re trying to manage the unknown.”

The guidelines from the Department of Transportation’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration don’t tell companies specifically how to get to an autonomous car that can safely carry people down the road, leaving a lot to interpretation.

But they tell companies to explain how they’ll comply with a 15-point safety assessment before they roll out the cars. And the guidelines also make clear that NHTSA will force recalls if software doesn’t perform as it should. The agency, for the first time in its history, may even seek authority from Congress to approve technology before it goes on the road.

“We want to be as nimble and flexible as we can be, recognizing that we will never, ever compromise on what we think is safe,” Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx said at a Washington news conference.