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NHTSA Announces 'Significant and Seamless' Initiative


American Government

NHTSA Announces 'Significant and Seamless' Initiative

NHTSA
November 17, 2013


NHTSA 33-13
Thursday, November 14, 2013
Contact: Nathan Naylor, 202-366-9550, Public.Affairs@dot.gov


Three Technologies Poised to Offer the Greatest Advancements in Highway Safety


WASHINGTON – In an effort to significantly reduce deaths and injuries on the nation's roadways, the U.S. Department of Transportation's National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has announced its new "Significant and Seamless" initiative that calls for the agency and the automotive industry to aggressively accelerate achievable technological advances that would significantly improve safety.

NHTSA's "Significant and Seamless" initiative aims to address the areas in highway safety where industry can fast-track existing technology for the greatest technological advances. The initiative emphasizes three promising areas of technological development and challenges both the automotive industry and the agency to determine the extent of, and ultimately utilize, the significant safety potential in these areas.

"Safety is our top priority and we can achieve remarkable progress in reducing injuries and fatalities in this era of innovation and technology," said Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx. "Today's announcement focuses on real solutions that can significantly address safety issues that have plagued this nation for decades, including failure to use seat belts, drunk driving and driver error."

The three technologies are:

The three technologies chosen under the Significant & Seamless initiative were selected because they have great lifesaving potential, and their combined effect could have an impact on decreasing the death toll.

"In addition to our ongoing work with states and the automotive industry, we need a new vision, and a new blend of technological research to address some of the most significant and persistent threats to American motorists," said NHTSA Administrator David Strickland. "We must look to technological intervention to make the next great leap, and get them poised for fleet adoption as soon as possible."

The new "Significant and Seamless" initiative builds on a solid foundation of NHTSA safety programs. These programs include work with states to educate motorists, improve driving behavior, including emergency response to crashes, and will increase the agency's commitment to enhancing occupant protection, crash worthiness and crash avoidance, with the promise of automated driving.

Earlier this year, NHTSA released a "Preliminary Statement of Policy Concerning Automated Vehicles," describing research plans and the various levels of vehicle automation ranging from no-automation to full self-driving automation. The plan also offered guidance to states for moving forward with testing automated vehicles on their roads.  View NHTSA's preliminary policy on automated vehicles.

Stay connected with NHTSA via: Facebook.com/NHTSA | Twitter.com/NHTSAgov | YouTube.com/USDOTNHTSA | SaferCar.gov




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