FMCSA Rejects Driverless Alternatives for Hazard Warnings

Self-driving trucks that pull onto the shoulder of the road aren’t exempt from driver-based hazard protocols … at least, for now.

That’s the determination of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) in a Dec. 27 notice in the Federal Register. Driverless trucking companies Waymo and Aurora both requested exemptions from the current hazard protocols, which requires someone to set up warning devices “at prescribed locations around commercial motor vehicles” and that “lamps on [a] CMV be steady burning.”

The two companies asked if they and “similarly situated companies” could use cab-mounted warning beacons and other tools that don’t require human intervention. FMCSA denied the request, noting that neither company provided “sufficient details” about alternative devices, nor demonstrated how their alternatives “would ensure an equivalent or greater level of safety.”

However, the regulator made a point of keeping the door open on such concepts.

“This decision does not preclude [a]pplicants or others from seeking an exemption to use better defined warning beacons for specified companies in particular locations, as one of the bases of the [a]gency’s decision here is the broad reach of [a]pplicants’ request.”