Washington, D.C.—This afternoon, SAFE was joined by Dr. Steven Cliff, the Acting Administrator for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) and a host of autonomous vehicle (AV) and vehicle safety experts for an important and timely event on the pathways for safe AV deployment.
After Dr. Cliff’s remarks, SAFE was joined by Nat Beuse, the Vice President of Safety at Aurora Innovation; Debbie Hersman, the former CEO of the National Safety Council and former Chair of the National Transportation Safety Board; Desi Ujkashevic, the Global Director, Automotive Safety Office, Ford; Dean Degazio, the Global Safety Director at Motional; and Jack Weast, an Intel Corporation Fellow and Vice President of Automated Vehicle Standards at Mobileye.
“Promising step-changes in productivity for economic growth, an ability to maintain leadership in the transportation sector by competing with China, saving lives on our roads, and increases in efficiency and the acceleration of EV adoption, AVs hold the potential for U.S. economic and societal advancement on a scale unseen since the invention of the automobile itself. It will impact everything in our lives, and we need to make sure that the United States is ahead,” said Robbie Diamond, President and CEO of SAFE.
In addition, the SAFE event also hosted the release of A Framework for Autonomous Vehicle Deployment and Safety, a paper by O. Kevin Vincent, the former Chief Counsel at NHTSA and current Associate General Counsel at Lucid Motors.
“As 94 percent of U.S. road accidents are due either wholly or in part to human error, an automated driver—unable to drive drunk, tired, or distracted—promises meaningful, lasting reductions road deaths and injuries, with the potential for continued improvement over time. Safety is therefore a critical metric of AV regulation and deployment, but in the absence of a federal framework for AVs industry has faced uncertainty as a patchwork of state regulatory approaches fill the vacuum,” Diamond added.
You can watch the event on SAFE’s YouTube channel.
Contact: Alex Adams | 202.461.2374 | aadams@secureenergy.org
About SAFE
SAFE enhances the nation’s energy security and supports our economic resurgence and resiliency, by advancing transformative transportation and mobility technologies and ensuring that the United States secures key aspects of the technology supply chain to achieve and maintain our strategic advantage.
In partnership with the Electrification Coalition, SAFE’s sister organization, we work with consumers, businesses, and policymakers, to launch award-winning “real-world” programs and enable the needed polices to accelerate transportation electrification around the country to reduce our Nation’s dependence on oil.
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