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The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration recently announced an initiative to “safely unleash American innovation” by, among other things, removing brake pedals from autonomous vehicles that it says do not require them.
Specifically, the department is looking to amend Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard (FMVSS) No. 135, “Light vehicle brake systems.” Standard No. 135 was initially published in 1995, and passenger cars have changed a lot since then. This proposed adjustment would not modify any stopping distance requirements covered by No. 135, just the requirement for a pedal in cars governed by autonomous-driving systems, and the capability of braking systems would be evaluated in an “alternative” manner.
At this still early stage in robotaxi development, not every company’s solution is built the same or equally far along. Waymo, for example, does not use human safety monitors, while Tesla still does (kind of). The latter could change soon—the company is testing Cybercabs without human inputs in Austin—and rule changes like these suit its intended trajectory.
If companies don’t deem it necessary to have a monitor in the car just in case, then ditching brake pedals probably won’t mean much. The potential problem here is that NHTSA is tearing down barriers it calls “pointless,” without also taking this opportunity to get ahead of inevitable problems.
For example, a footnote on Page 9 states that, “NHTSA is taking no position at this time as to how a passenger should be able to direct an ADS-operated vehicle to stop, or how the ADS should respond to such direction. NHTSA will continue to consider this issue as it addresses ADS performance.” If you’re going through the trouble of ditching brake pedals, now would seem like a pretty good time to develop some kind of failsafe or kill-switch protocol for passengers in rogue AVs. I suppose regulators intend to cross that bridge when they get to it, to put that in the softest terms imaginable.
There are some good ideas in here. One measure that actually supports the NHTSA’s claim that it is seeking to modernize things with “no negative impact to vehicle safety” is its stated position on “telltales,” or, in this case, a brake indicator visible to occupants. “Some stakeholders have indicated that telltales are relevant only to the driver, and the information merely needs to be conveyed to the ADS for vehicles designed not to be operated by a human driver. NHTSA tentatively disagrees with this approach,” the framework reads.
The proposal mentions other, less load-bearing modernizations in play, like how there’s no need for windshield wiper controls in autonomous vehicles. Ultimately, what all this does is ease the path for robotaxi hopefuls to get their product on the road, which is great if you run a robotaxi hopeful. For those of us who don’t, the benefits are less immediately clear.
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Backed by a decade of covering cars and consumer tech, Adam Ismail is a Senior Editor at The Drive, focused on curating and producing the site’s slate of daily stories.
