“Whether the outcome of the election is a Trump administration or a Harris administration, I think you’re going to continue to see significant efforts to collect data on AV (autonomous vehicle) systems already deployed on the road,” Adams told FreightWaves in an interview. .

ADS railings

Adams, who is now a partner at law firm Hogan Lovells, said the Trump administration has taken an industry-led approach to developing autonomous vehicle operations, encouraging feedback from companies that could benefit most from them.

The Biden administration, in contrast, “has focused on leveraging technology to achieve safer outcomes,” he said. “We were willing to set the guardrails — that is, an actual rule — rather than let the industry dictate what was going to happen, and I spent most of my two and a half years in the administration trying to develop those guardrails.”

Higher costs for training and certifying people performing enhanced inspections for higher levels of automation are expected to be factored into the proposed rule, as well as the potential to burden trucks and their drivers with additional inspections that could reduce the time available for revenue generation. service.

Adams cautioned, however, that given recent and growing labor concerns, getting a proposed AV rule through next year could prove difficult even under a Harris administration.

Automatic braking rule to set new standards

A final rule governing one particular type of automation — braking — was scheduled for publication in the Federal Register in January, to be issued jointly by the FMCSA and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

Elaboration of the rules “is expected to establish performance standards and vehicle maintenance requirements for AEB systems on heavy trucks and accompanying test procedures to measure the performance of AEB systems,” according to a summary of the rules.

“I’ll be looking to see if they actually go for it,” Adams said. “We have a brake rule in place now for passenger cars, but we saw an opportunity to work hand-in-hand with NHTSA to extend that to trucks.”

The National Association of Small Trucking Companies (NASTC), which represents thousands of small trucking companies, says technology mandates like AEB will ultimately increase costs for shippers and consumers because of higher capital costs for new trucks.

“Furthermore, newer, more expensive truck models slow the turnover of older trucks,” NASTC President David Owen said in comments submitted on the AEB’s proposed rule.

Owen also states that the safety case for mandating AEB has not yet been adequately evaluated, nor has the technology been perfected. For example, when AEB kicks in suddenly, it can catch a truck driver by surprise, he said.

“The sudden action of the device is almost error-prone and may require evasive action on the part of the professional driver. Currently and for the foreseeable future, AEB is more of a threat to road safety than a solution.”

Anxiety with the speed limiter

An even more controversial regulation on the horizon for trucks that Adams is considering is a requirement by the FMCSA to limit the maximum speeds of heavy-duty truck engines equipped with electronic engine control units. That speed limit is to be determined by a proposed rule scheduled for May 2025.

Much of the criticism FMCSA has heard from owners of smaller trucks and owner-operators who believe speed limits would make it more difficult to compete with larger carriers—many of which already use speed limiters in their fleets—and would put out of business.

The Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association, which strongly opposes speed limiters, also argues that they are also unsafe because of the increased speed differentials that would occur with other vehicles on the highway if there were a speed mandatory maximum for heavy trucks.

Adams acknowledged that FMCSA “received a lot of criticism for the proposed speed limiter rule,” he said.

“But even now, looking back nine months or so, when I was at the agency, we approached this without bias or preconceived ideas, whether speed limiters are good or bad,” he said. “It was a very apolitical approach to a technology that has been around for years among fleet owners.

“What was on our mind was that we have 40,000 highway deaths a year, 3,000 of which are from commercial trucks, and a large percentage of those were speed-related. So if we can use the technology to limit speed and thus save lives, that’s why we took this on and are so determined to try to solve it.”

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