Start with what the document actually proposes, because the name promises more than the rule delivers. AV STEP, the ADS-equipped Vehicle Safety, Transparency, and Evaluation Program, is not a federal approval that declares a driverless car safe to deploy. It is a voluntary evaluation-and-reporting framework, set out in a notice of proposed rulemaking, 90 FR 4130, published January 15, 2025. As a proposed rule it has no legal force yet; it defines what a national program would look like and opens it for comment.

The proposal's own summary states its scope and its limits in one breath. NHTSA describes AV STEP as a program for ADS-equipped vehicles "that operate or may operate on public roads in the United States under NHTSA's oversight," with the goal of "improving public transparency related to the safety of certain ADS-equipped vehicles, while allowing for responsible development of this technology." The two halves of that sentence are the whole design tension: transparency on one side, room for development on the other, with participation voluntary rather than mandated.

This document proposes a voluntary framework for the evaluation and oversight of motor vehicles equipped with automated driving systems (ADS). The ADS-equipped Vehicle Safety, Transparency, and Evaluation Program (AV STEP) would establish a national program for ADS-equipped vehicles that operate or may operate on public roads in the United States under NHTSA's oversight.— ADS-equipped Vehicle Safety, Transparency, and Evaluation Program, 90 FR 4130, source

What a participant would have to submit

Strip the framing and what AV STEP proposes is a structured paperwork-and-disclosure regime. The proposal identifies content requirements for an application, which according to the document include "independent assessments of ADS safety processes, such as the safety cases used and conformance to industry standards." Two ideas in that clause are worth isolating. The first is the "safety case" — a documented, evidence-backed argument that a system is acceptably safe for a defined operating context. The second is independence: the assessment of those safety processes is to be done by a party other than the applicant, so that the evaluation is not purely self-certification. NHTSA states these application requirements would inform its decisions on the terms and conditions of participation.

The obligations would not end at the application. The proposal contains reporting requirements for participants, "including periodic and event-triggered reporting." Periodic reporting is the routine cadence — regular submissions while a vehicle is in the program. Event-triggered reporting is the safety-relevant exception channel: a participant would have to report when something defined as a triggering event occurs. Together they would give NHTSA a continuing stream of information about deployed ADS vehicles rather than a one-time snapshot at the application stage, which is the "transparency" half of the program's name made concrete.

Why a voluntary program at all

The choice to make AV STEP voluntary is the most consequential design decision in the proposal, and it is worth sizing against the boring incumbent it sits beside. NHTSA already has mandatory authority over motor-vehicle safety through the Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards and its defect-and-recall powers — the agency's 2022 occupant-protection rule for ADS vehicles is an example of that binding authority applied to crashworthiness. AV STEP does not replace any of that. It is layered on top as an opt-in evaluation track aimed specifically at the operational safety of the driving system, an area the existing crashworthiness FMVSS were never written to address. A company would enter AV STEP to gain a recognized, NHTSA-administered evaluation and the transparency that comes with it, not because the law compels it to.

The two-step structure

The proposal does not treat all ADS vehicles alike. As described, the program "would be structured around two levels of participation: Step 1 and Step 2." The dividing line is human fallback: "Step 1 would apply to vehicles that rely on fallback personnel and Step 2 would apply to vehicles that do not rely on fallback personnel." NHTSA notes that "the proposed participation requirements differ between these steps," because the approach to managing risk changes when there is no human available to take over. A vehicle that still leans on a remote or in-vehicle person sits in a different tier than one expected to handle the full driving task alone.

The document leans on the standard SAE vocabulary to define what is being evaluated. An ADS is a system meant to perform "the entire dynamic driving task (DDT) while operating within the system's operational design domain (ODD), without any expectation that a human driver will be attentive." The proposal allows that "a human may still be expected to take over the driving task when the ADS exits its ODD" or, during development, "to perform a safety oversight role." The operational design domain — the conditions the system is built to handle — is therefore central to both the safety case a participant submits and the step it falls into.

AV STEP would also sit alongside, not replace, the existing compliance routes. The proposal notes that manufacturers may already operate ADS vehicles on public roads "as long as they comply with existing Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards (FMVSS) and state and local laws," and that where a vehicle "does not comply with all applicable FMVSS, exemptions may be requested from NHTSA," a path that "has typically involved purpose-built vehicles." Comments on the proposal were requested on or before March 17, 2025; the program described in the notice is what the agency proposed for comment, not yet a final rule.

For readers trying to place AV STEP in the regulatory landscape, three facts anchor it. It is a proposed rule, so its requirements are not yet in force and could change before any final rule. It is voluntary, so it does not, on its own terms, compel any manufacturer to participate. And it is centered on process and disclosure — safety cases, independent assessments, conformance to standards, and continuing reports — rather than on a pass/fail performance test of the driving function itself. Whether AV STEP becomes a durable national framework depends on what NHTSA does after the comment period; what the proposal commits to is fully readable in the Federal Register notice, which is the document any claim about AV STEP should be checked against.