On 10 March 2022, the final rule aiming to integrate automated vehicles into the existing safety standards was submitted for publication in the Federal Register in the United States.

This final rule amends the occupant protection Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards (FMVSSs) to account for future vehicles that do not have the traditional manual controls associated with a human driver because they are equipped with automated driving systems (ADSs).

This amendment is needed since the current occupant protection standards are written for traditionally designed vehicles and, therefore, use terms, such as driver’s seat and steering wheel, that are not meaningful to vehicle designs that, for example, lack a steering wheel or other driver controls.

In addition, this final rule amends the standards in a manner that maintains the existing regulatory text whenever possible to make clear that it maintains the same level of crash protection currently provided to occupants in more traditionally designed vehicles.

Full Article: IEEE Vehicular Technology Magazine, Volume 17, Number 2, June 2022

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