Auto Industry Agrees to Cooperate with Government on Safety

“We have to have one foot grounded in what we know about safety and apply our thinking to manage this transition, but we also have to have a healthy dose of learning from industry, and learning what they know and taking into account the ways we have thought about safety have to change”. “Exemption authority allows National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to enable the deployment of up to 2,500 vehicles for up to two years if the agency determines that an exemption would ease development of new safety features”.

“The current patchwork of state regulations was created for the last century, and when they fall short, they will limit the true potential of these new technologies”, Garfield said.

The pact was announced Friday at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit by Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx with Marchionne, GM CEO Mary Barra and several other top industry officials in attendance.

The U.S. Department of transportation is looking to partner with tech-based manufactures and companies in order to develop pilot programs that will ensure that self-driving cars are safe.

“Perhaps years from now we will look back at this moment, at a time when there may have been some skepticism about the safety of the automotive industry in general, and see that the industry stepped up and made a hard pivot with us towards a more proactive culture”, Foxx said. Foxx has been meeting with the leaders of major USA auto companies since October in an effort to demonstrate the administration’s frustration with the widespread safety defects in US cars. Auto makers also agreed to better share information on cybersecurity in the wake of publicized vehicle hacking. Many experts believe greater disclosure has improved safety, but also say credit goes to improvements in planes. So we ask ourselves, what happens if human error was eliminated?

Until now, the federal government has taken a hands-off approach to regulating new technology that allows vehicles to operate independently and without an actual driver.

Safety advocates have criticized such industry-government cooperation because regulators can become too reliant on automakers for information and data.

“The old way of doing business doesn’t work”, he said.

“We have finalized a historic agreement on a set of broad-ranging actions to help make our roads safer and help avoid the sort of safety crisis that generates the wrong kind of record-setting and headlines”, Foxx said. “You have to have separation of church and state, but you need to be able to move quicker”.