Federal Agency To Launch Anti-Speeding Initiative

According to a Reuters article by David Shepardson, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) is making a push to emphasize the dangers of speeding and encourage safe driving, as well as moving to more strictly regulate vehicle automation. In an interview with Reuters, NHTSA Administrator Steven Cliff “said NHTSA is moving aggressively to get new regulations out and ‘kicking off a lot of rulemakings related to automation.’ Since January 2021, the agency has finalized 16 rules and begun work on 25 new rules,” Shepardson reports.

Cliff says speeding should “‘be as undesirable and seen as negatively as other types of bad’ driving habits.” The initiative comes as traffic deaths grow. “In 2020, the number of speeding-related traffic deaths increased by 17% to 11,258, while overall traffic deaths rose 7.2%. In 2021, U.S. traffic deaths jumped 10.5% to 42,915, the highest annual number killed on American roads in a year since 2005.”

The agency is working on several issues related to autonomous vehicles, including their investigation of Tesla’s advanced driver assistance system. “NHTSA is holding talks with automakers and safety advocates about a potential demonstration program for autonomous vehicles.” Cliff told Reuters, “Ultimately I see that leading to some sort of demonstration program that can help us better understand how safety would be evaluated in determining whether it's appropriate to pull a human driver from the vehicle itself in widespread deployment.”