Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards

The good thing is the people who belong to that consortium are the ones that the rules are going to apply to, and it's legitimate to hear what they have to say for a little that's going to apply to them.

And the rules we're talking about are setting up tests like an unprotected left turn and how can we make a repeatable test that conforms to FMVSS.

Now, saying that you can get safety via testing for a computer-based system never really works, but that's the only hammer NHTSA has right now.

They will tell you.

It's not it's.

This is going to keep the worst of the worst bad actors off the road, and there's value in that, but it is not the same as proving it safe.

Just like the rest of FMVSS is sort of a filter to keep the really bad actors out.

That's minimum standard.

Yeah, so the rear seat, they just kind of put a bench across the back and they said, you know what, we'll just put two seatbelts in here.

Well, they didn't get dive deep into the American FMVSS, which are the Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards, that how wide your seat also determines how many seatbelts you have to have.

Because if the seat is wide enough to fit three people, three kids, Three people are going to sit back there.

But you can't put two seatbelts in only.

So one area that I didn't even get to touch upon is where blind zones are a big factor are child front over crashes.

So little kids that run up in front of the car, it's very much like the back over crashes that NHTSA then addressed by adding some FMVSS to have rear view cameras.

There is technology on vehicles that we know could be reprogrammed or added to vehicles that could help detect little children that run up to the front and the side of the vehicles.

This is definitely a public health issue, and it's something that we're working with advocates and folks that are involved in child safety.

I know that has nothing to do necessarily with the with trucking here, but the advancement of technology that would actually save people's lives and putting them in harm's way I think is a pretty interesting concept.

Then one of the biggest things that caught my eye, which it always does, is when they have crash cars and vehicles that are set up and the different types of technology from an FMVSS standard when it comes to putting airbags and things of that nature into cars and how that can save people's lives.

It's just when I see mangled up vehicles, to be honest with you, it just brings back a lot of different memories and hoping that you can do something that will you know, not put people and their families through pain and so forth that they've been involved in traffic crashes and distracted driving.

Another piece is something that is very, very interesting.

This means that the technology of the future is often tethered to the regulations of the past.

So we are working diligently on much-needed FMVSS updates to account for new designs enabled by automated driving systems without compromising safety.

But doing this on an iterative and experimental basis won't meet our goals of providing regulatory assurance on a timeframe that matches the trajectory of technological development and deployment.

so I'm excited to announce that just yesterday, we've just executed a cooperative agreement with SAE to launch a SEND consortium.

Quote, We aren't trying to predict the future as we update these standards.

We don't have a crystal ball that tells us how automotive technology will evolve, although I've asked for one.

But if we revise our FMVSS to focus on performance, not design requirements, we won't need to be fortune tellers.

Our FMVSS will be nimble enough to ensure that the vehicles of the future continue to deliver the high level of safety we expect.

Now we know exactly what kind of questions the government had.

So NHTSA, the National Highway and Transportation Safety Authority, is specifically probing whether the vehicle complies with the Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards.

For those unfamiliar, the FMVSS is kind of the process that states, you know, each vehicle has to do this, has to have the, you know, X, can't do Y, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

And in the U.S., manufacturers are allowed to self-certify their vehicles.

Isn't it cheaper to build the same product everywhere in the world? Because it seems like the U.S.

You know, that makes sense to me, right? There's some difference between the Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards and European standards that...

probably makes that, you know, a lot more difficult than you think.

But at the same time, I don't think that that is a reason to slow down safety progress.

because there's not enough drivers to hire for the need of public transportation.

And one of the biggest shifts I have seen is the move from small, low-speed shuttles that those are competitors of walking or cyclist to mid-size or full-size FMVSS compliant ADA accessible transit buses.

So for that reason, we work with three OEMs across four vehicle models and top these models are North America compliant, which really matters for agencies that rely on federal funding, especially for Buy America reasons.

So here in the US, the use cases are getting more varied.

But here's my question for you.

Leading up to it, the, the whole thing about manual controls though brings up another question which is, um, okay, so little insider baseball, any car needs to have, you know, meet FMVSS, Federal Motor Vehicle Standards.

Um, the typical process for a traditional automaker like Ford or GM with a, a human-driven vehicle is they self-certify, and then they, then they, you know, go through the homologation process.

They self-certify, and they, their cars are sold.