Comments of the R Street Institute in RFC on Zoox Petition
April 10, 2026
National Highway Traffic Safety Administration
1200 New Jersey Avenue SE,
Washington, DC 20590
Re: Comment in Support of Zoox, Inc. Petition for Temporary Exemption from Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards, Docket No. NHTSA-2025-0523
Submitted Electronically
This Document is Approved for Public Dissemination.
Comments of the R Street Institute in Request for Comment on Zoox, Inc. Petition for Temporary Exemption from Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards
I. OVERVIEW OF R STREET’S COMMENTS
The R Street Institute respectfully submits the following comment in support of the petition filed by Zoox for a temporary exemption under 49 C.F.R. Part 555 from certain portions of the Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards (FMVSS). R Street is a nonprofit, nonpartisan public policy research organization committed to free markets and limited, effective government solutions. For over a decade[1], R Street has advocated for increased regulatory flexibility in the transportation sector[2], including a move to performance-based standards and exemptions from outdated regulations that hamper the development and deployment of autonomous vehicles.
We support the principle that regulatory frameworks need to evolve alongside technology, and that the Part 555 exemption process, when properly administered, is an appropriate mechanism for accommodating technological progress.
II. HUMAN-CENTRIC SAFETY STANDARDS FALL SHORT FOR AUTONOMOUS VEHICLES
The FMVSS represent decades of effort to protect the occupants of motor vehicles and the public at large; however, they were written with a foundational assumption in place: that a human operator would be present and in control of a vehicle. As such, requirements for a steering wheel, pedals, mirrors, and windshield wipers reflect that assumption rather than an objective definition of vehicle safety features.
Fully autonomous vehicles operating at SAE Level 4 are able to entirely eliminate the human driver from the vehicle design. To maintain safety, they utilize redundant sensor suites, real-time computation capabilities, and failsafe disengagement systems – features that are categorically different from vehicles operating below SAE Level 4. Because these vehicles achieve safety through systems that have no human-driver analog, applying human-centric FMVSS provisions to them does nothing to enhance safety. In some cases, doing so could actively impede the development of technologies that could reduce or prevent the 35,000 to 40,000 traffic fatalities that occur on American roads every year[3].
This distinction between design conformance and safety outcomes should create a shift in the criteria that regulators focus on. Rather than evaluating whether a vehicle conforms to human-centric design specifications, it is far more important to evaluate whether the design would result in equivalent or superior safety outcomes.
Congress anticipated this shift and instituted the Part 555 temporary exemption process to allow vehicle manufacturers to demonstrate that novel vehicle designs are able to meet or exceed safety goals through alternative means[4], with meaningful federal monitoring, without having to wait for the full rulemaking cycle to catch up with technological reality[5].
III. REGULATORY ACCOMMODATION THROUGH PART 555
R Street endorses this model: instead of instituting a blanket prohibition that would stifle innovation, or leaving manufacturers completely unchecked to deploy without accountability, the exemption framework presents an effective and responsible middle path. Applicants bear the burden of demonstrating the safety of their alternative designs while the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) retains supervisory authority.
However, the benefits of Part 555 exemptions can be thwarted by excessive delay in processing petitions. Should the regulatory pathway for these exemptions become ambiguous or bear indefinite delays, investment in domestic autonomous vehicles will be suppressed, causing the U.S. to lag behind international competitors operating under more adaptive frameworks. This highlights how slow and inefficient regulatory processes can negatively affect American economic[6] and national security goals[7].
R Street’s support for this petition reflects our broader position on technology policy: regulations should be performance-based and flexible enough to adapt to emerging technologies. Rather than prescriptive design regulations, regulators should adopt frameworks that focus on outcomes. In transportation, that means moving beyond regulations designed for human drivers and focusing on whether autonomous vehicle designs can provide a safe experience for passengers. NHTSA should use the Part 555 process as intended to enable the deployment of these types of systems. Doing so presents an opportunity to gather real-world safety data in a controlled manner. This data would allow regulators to deepen their understanding of real-world autonomous vehicle performance and develop new, performance-based standards[8] that remain relevant across future generations of vehicle technology.
We encourage NHTSA to act on this petition expeditiously and favorably, consistent with its statutory mandate and with the data that Zoox has provided to support its application.
Mark Dalton
Senior Policy Director
Technology and Innovation
R Street Institute
mdalton@rstreet.org
[1] R Street Institute, “California Gets It Very Wrong on Self-Driving Cars,” Dec. 16, 2015, https://www.rstreet.org/commentary/california-gets-it-very-wrong-on-self-driving-cars/.
[2] R Street Institute, “R Street sees NHTSA guidance on self-driving cars as a positive step,” Sep. 20, 2016, https://www.rstreet.org/commentary/r-street-sees-nhtsa-guidance-on-self-driving-cars-as-positive-step/.
[3] NHTSA, “Trump’s Transportation Department Announces Record-Low Traffic Deaths & Fatality Rates in 2025, Apr. 1, 2026, https://www.nhtsa.gov/press-releases/traffic-deaths-2025-early-estimates-2024-annual.
[4] Congressional Research Service, “Safety Considerations for Automated Passenger Vehicles,” July 22, 2025 (R48605), https://www.congress.gov/crs_external_products/R/PDF/R48605/R48605.1.pdf.
[5] NHTSA, “Part 555 Letter,” Jun. 13, 2025, https://www.nhtsa.gov/sites/nhtsa.gov/files/2025-06/part-555-letter-june-2025.pdf.
[6] Mark Dalton and Adam Thierer, “‘AMERICA DRIVES’ Act Addresses Need for a National Autonomous Vehicle Policy Framework,” R Street Institute, Aug. 18, 2025, https://www.rstreet.org/commentary/america-drives-act-addresses-need-for-a-national-autonomous-vehicle-policy-framework/.
[7] House Report 118-154, “DEPARTMENTS OF TRANSPORTATION, AND HOUSING AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT, AND RELATED AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS BILL, 2024,” Jul. 24, 2023, https://www.congress.gov/committee-report/118th-congress/house-report/154.
[8] Autonomous Vehicle Industry Association, “Securing American Leadership in Autonomous Vehicles,” January 2025, https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/67ee365c25e6530594bd40c2/683d8d2fa60ac22d542b1049_Securing%20American%20Leadership%20in%20Autonomous%20Vehicles1.pdf.