Autonomous vehicles and vehicles with automated driving functions now have their own set of motor vehicle safety standards, a U.S. federal agency ruled on Thursday. The ruling begins to provide clarity on how passenger safety should be defined in vehicles that are designed without things like driver's seats and steering wheels.

The U.S. Department of Transportation’s National Highway Traffic and Safety Administration (NHTSA) issued the first-of-its-kind final rule that updates the safety requirements for occupants in vehicles that don’t have traditional manual controls associated with a human driver.

The rule, which, among other modifications, changes terminology in the Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards (FMVSS) to reflect the spatial layout of automated vehicles, builds on the agency’s previous efforts to ensure public safety as automation evolves. Last year, NHTSA issued an order that required AV operators and manufacturers to report crashes to the agency, and in 2020, it launched an AV testing initiative that allows states and companies to submit information about AV testing that can be viewed by the public.

“As the driver changes from a person to a machine in ADS-equipped vehicles, the need to keep the humans safe remains the same and must be integrated from the beginning,” said Dr. Steven Cliff, NHTSA’s deputy administrator, in a statement. “With this rule, we ensure that manufacturers put safety first.”

In a lot of ways, the rule is reactive to an industry that's already well under way. However, no purpose-built AVs have been deployed on public roads yet, so forming the basis of regulation for new types of vehicles now is certainly a step in the right direction.

The rule firstly makes changes to terminology that are written for traditionally designed vehicles in order to avoid both ambiguity and unnecessary terminology. Terms like “driver’s seat,” “steering wheel” or “passenger seat” won’t make sense to use as spatial references for purpose-built AVs that aren’t built with such features. Cruise and Zoox are both building such AVs that are designed for sharing and do not have much in the way of traditional interiors.