Notice2026-01272
Request for Comment on Vestigial Vehicle Safety Regulations
Primary source
Metadata and text below are from the Federal Register, a public-domain U.S. government work. Always verify the official published version before relying on it for any legal matter.
Published
January 23, 2026
Issuing agencies
Transportation DepartmentNational Highway Traffic Safety Administration
Abstract
In alignment with the Department's ongoing commitment to regulatory reform and the promotion of automotive innovation, NHTSA is seeking public comment to identify requirements and test procedures within the Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards (FMVSS) and regulations that no longer serve a functional safety purpose but continue to impose costs, stifle design creativity, or act as barriers to the deployment of new technologies. This request for comment specifically targets technical requirements that hinder the transition to technology-neutral, performance-based standards.
Full Text
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<title>Federal Register, Volume 91 Issue 15 (Friday, January 23, 2026)</title>
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[Federal Register Volume 91, Number 15 (Friday, January 23, 2026)]
[Notices]
[Pages 2992-2994]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [<a href="http://www.gpo.gov">www.gpo.gov</a>]
[FR Doc No: 2026-01272]
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DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION
National Highway Traffic Safety Administration
[Docket No. NHTSA-2026-0133]
Request for Comment on Vestigial Vehicle Safety Regulations
AGENCY: National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA),
Department of Transportation (DOT).
ACTION: Request for comments (RFC).
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SUMMARY: In alignment with the Department's ongoing commitment to
regulatory reform and the promotion of automotive innovation, NHTSA is
seeking public comment to identify requirements and test procedures
within the Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards (FMVSS) and
regulations that no longer serve a functional safety purpose but
continue to impose costs, stifle design creativity, or act as barriers
to the deployment of new technologies. This request for comment
specifically targets technical requirements that hinder the transition
to technology-neutral, performance-based standards.
DATES: Comments must be received on or before March 24, 2026.
ADDRESSES: You may submit comments, identified by the docket number at
the heading of this document, by any of the following methods:
<bullet> Federal eRulemaking Portal: Go to <a href="http://www.regulations.gov">http://www.regulations.gov</a>. Follow the online instructions for submitting
comments.
<bullet> Mail: Docket Management Facility, U.S. Department of
Transportation, 1200 New Jersey Avenue SE, West Building Ground Floor,
Room W12-140, Washington, DC 20590.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Shashi Kuppa, Office of
Crashworthiness Standards (<a href="/cdn-cgi/l/email-protection#e5968d84968d8ccb8e90959584a5818a91cb828a93"><span class="__cf_email__" data-cfemail="d1a2b9b0a2b9b8ffbaa4a1a1b091b5bea5ffb6bea7">[email protected]</span></a>). You can reach her by
phone at 202-366-1810. Address: National Highway Traffic Safety
Administration, U.S. Department of Transportation, 1200 New Jersey
Avenue SE, Washington, DC 20590.
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:
Table of Contents
I. Background
II. Summary of 2025 Deregulatory Actions
III. Vestigial Standards and Regulations
IV. Request for Comment
V. Public Participation
I. Background
On April 3, 2025, the Department of Transportation (DOT) issued a
request for information (RFI) notice \1\ seeking comments and
information to assist DOT in identifying existing regulations,
guidance, paperwork requirements, and other regulatory obligations that
can be modified or repealed, as part of its implementation of Executive
orders issued by the President, including Executive Order 14219,
``Ensuring Lawful Governance and Implementation of the President's
`Department of Government Efficiency' Deregulatory Agenda,'' issued on
February 19, 2025,\2\ and Executive Order 14192, ``Unleashing
Prosperity through Deregulation,'' issued on January 31, 2025.\3\ This
effort was undertaken ``to ensure that DOT administrative actions do
not undermine the national interest and that DOT achieves meaningful
burden reduction while continuing to meet statutory obligations and
ensure the safety of the U.S. transportation system.'' \4\
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\1\ 90 FR 14593.
\2\ 90 FR 10583.
\3\ 90 FR 9065.
\4\ Id.
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II. Summary of 2025 Deregulatory Actions
Pursuant to Executive Order 14192, ``to alleviate unnecessary
regulatory burdens placed on the American people,'' on May 30, 2025,
NHTSA initiated 16 deregulatory actions, consisting of 15 Notices of
Proposed Rulemaking (NPRMs) and one withdrawal of a pending action.\5\
These actions primarily target obsolete regulatory text and procedural
requirements that no longer serve a safety purpose.
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\5\ 90 FR 22964-23025.
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While the Agency continues to finalize the actions identified in
the May 30, 2025 NPRMs and evaluate the feedback from the April 3, 2025
RFI, we recognize that a more targeted inquiry is needed. This notice
focuses on the technical substance of safety standards and regulations
that no longer serve a functional safety purpose but continue to impose
costs, stifle design creativity, or act as barriers to the deployment
of new technologies. These standards and regulations, similar to
vestigial organs--such as the appendix or wisdom teeth--which may have
served a vital purpose in a previous evolutionary stage, no longer
serve a functional role and, in some cases, can cause harm.
[[Page 2993]]
III. Vestigial Standards and Regulations
Many FMVSSs were drafted with high specificity regarding testing
inputs and hardware designs that were appropriate for the technology of
the 1970s or 1980s. Since that time, vehicle designs and architectures
have changed in fundamental ways, ranging from increased
electronification and electrification to the advent of automated
driving systems (ADS). Certain prescriptive requirements contained
within FMVSS have not been updated to reflect the vehicles of today,
let alone future technologies. Such requirements can stifle innovative
technologies, and limit design creativity and superior safety
innovations in ways completely removed from the safety performance
requirements and underlying safety purposes of the FMVSS. These
technical requirements often ossify, forcing manufacturers to design
for a specific test procedure rather than for the underlying safety
objective. When a standard or regulation requires a manufacturer to
meet a specific hardware-based requirement or test procedure that has
no modern safety benefit, it stifles the very innovation the National
Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act was intended to encourage.
IV. Request for Comment
Pursuant to the Executive Orders described herein, this request for
comments is seeking input from the public on requirements and test
procedures specified in FMVSS and regulations that are obsolete, no
longer necessary, justified or sensical, and can be removed or modified
without compromising motor vehicle safety. NHTSA is particularly
interested in identifying safety standards and regulations that:
1. Require specific hardware or design elements that have been
superseded by more effective modern technology.
2. Contain testing procedures that are incompatible with or
unnecessarily restrictive for innovative vehicle designs (e.g.,
vehicles without traditional manual controls).
3. Impose compliance burdens that do not result in a measurable
increase in real-world safety.
4. Act as a barrier to entry for new safety technologies by failing
to be technology-neutral.
NHTSA requests that commenters provide specific citations to the
FMVSS or other regulations administered by NHTSA and provide data or
technical analysis demonstrating how the regulation has become
vestigial.
NHTSA is currently reviewing and considering all comments received
in response to the April 3, 2025, RFI notice. Commenters who provided
feedback during that process do not need to resubmit those comments for
this proceeding. This request for comments is intended to supplement
that broader effort by focusing specifically on the technical vestigial
nature of vehicle safety standards.
V. Public Participation
Interested parties are strongly encouraged to submit thorough and
detailed comments relating to each of the relevant areas discussed in
this notice. Comments submitted will help NHTSA make informed decisions
as it strives to advance its deregulatory agenda.
How do I prepare and submit comments?
Your comments must be written and in English. To ensure that your
comments are correctly filed in the Docket, please include the docket
number indicated in this document in your comments.
Your comments must not be more than 15 pages long (49 CFR 553.21).
NHTSA established this limit to encourage you to write your primary
comments in a concise fashion. However, you may attach necessary
additional documents to your comments. There is no limit on the length
of the attachments.
If you are submitting comments electronically as a PDF (Adobe)
file, NHTSA asks that the documents submitted be scanned using an
Optical Character Recognition (OCR) process, thus allowing NHTSA to
search and copy certain portions of your submissions.
Please note that pursuant to the Data Quality Act, in order for
substantive data to be relied upon and used by the Agency, it must meet
the information quality standards set forth in the OMB and DOT Data
Quality Act guidelines. Accordingly, we encourage you to consult the
guidelines in preparing your comments. OMB's guidelines may be accessed
at <a href="https://www.transportation.gov/regulations/dot-information-dissemination-quality-guidelines">https://www.transportation.gov/regulations/dot-information-dissemination-quality-guidelines</a>.
How do I submit confidential business information?
You should submit a redacted ``public version'' of your comment
(including redacted versions of any additional documents or
attachments) to the docket using any of the methods identified under
ADDRESSES. This ``public version'' of your comment should contain only
the portions for which no claim of confidential treatment is made and
from which those portions for which confidential treatment is claimed
has been redacted. See below for further instructions on how to do
this.
You also need to submit a request for confidential treatment
directly to the Office of Chief Counsel. Requests for confidential
treatment are governed by 49 CFR part 512. Your request must set forth
the information specified in Part 512. This includes the materials for
which confidentiality is being requested (as explained in more detail
below); supporting information, pursuant to Sec. 512.8; and a
certificate, pursuant to Sec. 512.4(b) and part 512, Appendix A.
You are required to submit to the Office of the Chief Counsel one
unredacted ``confidential version'' of the information for which you
are seeking confidential treatment. Pursuant to Sec. 512.6, the words
``ENTIRE PAGE CONFIDENTIAL BUSINESS INFORMATION'' or ``CONFIDENTIAL
BUSINESS INFORMATION CONTAINED WITHIN BRACKETS'' (as applicable) must
appear at the top of each page containing information claimed to be
confidential. In the latter situation, where not all information on the
page is claimed to be confidential, identify each item of information
for which confidentiality is requested within brackets: ``[ ].''
You are also required to submit to the Office of the Chief Counsel
one redacted ``public version'' of the information for which you are
seeking confidential treatment. Pursuant to Sec. 512.5(a)(2), the
redacted ``public version'' should include redactions of any
information for which you are seeking confidential treatment (i.e., the
only information that should be unredacted is information for which you
are not seeking confidential treatment).
NHTSA is currently treating electronic submission as an acceptable
method for submitting confidential business information to the Agency
under Part 512. Please do not send a hardcopy of a request for
confidential treatment to NHTSA's headquarters. The request should be
sent to Dan Rabinovitz in the Office of the Chief Counsel at
<a href="/cdn-cgi/l/email-protection#4f0b2e21262a23611d2e2d26212039263b350f2b203b61282039"><span class="__cf_email__" data-cfemail="165277787f737a384477747f7879607f626c5672796238717960">[email protected]</span></a>. You may either submit your request via email
or request a secure file transfer link. If you are submitting the
request via email, please also email a courtesy copy of the request to
Shashi Kuppa at <a href="/cdn-cgi/l/email-protection#8cffe4edffe4e5a2e7f9fcfcedcce8e3f8a2ebe3fa"><span class="__cf_email__" data-cfemail="196a71786a717037726c696978597d766d377e766f">[email protected]</span></a>.
Will the Agency consider late comments?
We will consider all comments received before the close of business
on the comment closing date indicated
[[Page 2994]]
above under DATES. To the extent possible, we will also consider
comments that the docket receives after that date.
How can I read the comments submitted by other people?
You may read the materials placed in the docket for this document
(e.g., the comments submitted in response to this document by other
interested persons) at any time by going to <a href="http://www.regulations.gov">http://www.regulations.gov</a>.
Follow the online instructions for accessing the dockets. You may also
read the materials at the Docket Management Facility by going to the
street address given above under ADDRESSES. The Docket Management
Facility is open between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. Eastern Time, Monday through
Friday, except Federal holidays.
Please note that even after the comment closing date, we will
continue to file relevant information on the docket as it becomes
available. Further, some people may submit late comments. Accordingly,
we recommend that you periodically check the docket for new material.
Issued under authority delegated in 49 CFR 1.95.
Jonathan Morrison,
Administrator.
[FR Doc. 2026-01272 Filed 1-22-26; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 4910-59-P
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