For 50 years, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has worked to reduce deaths and injuries on our Nation's roads. The DOT Federal Automated Vehicles Policy sets the framework for the next 50 years with guidance for the safe and rapid development of advanced automated vehicle safety technologies.
These innovations have the potential to transform personal mobility and open doors to people and communities—people with disabilities, aging populations, communities where car ownership is prohibitively expensive—that today have limited or impractical options. Automated vehicles may also have the potential to save energy and reduce air pollution from transportation through efficiency and by supporting vehicle electrification.
But most importantly, we are encouraged by what we see as the next revolution in roadway safety. With more than 30,000 people dying on our roads every year, and with 94 percent of crashes tied to a human choice or error, we see great potential in the ability of automated technologies to save lives.
Our road map is ambitious and challenging. The arrival of the automated vehicle may prove to be the greatest personal transportation revolution since the popularization of the personal automobile nearly a century ago. How many lives might be saved in a future with automated vehicles on the road? DOT is committed to finding out.
This article originally appeared on nhtsa.gov
