American authorities plan to carefully control the technology of unmanned driving. This was stated by Stephen Cliff, the new head of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), according to the Associated Press.

He said advanced controls over automated vehicles are needed to create regulations that protect drivers, passengers and pedestrians.

Cliff said he was surprised by NHTSA’s lack of data on crashes involving drones. After taking office, he started the preparation of the relevant report.

As a result, it turned out that from July 1, 2021 to May 15, 2022, automated vehicles participated in about 400 accidents.

Cliff believes the industry needs federal safety standards. However, we should not rush into this matter,” he said.

“Every time we create a rule, we must define not only standards for technology, but also an objective way of measuring system performance to ensure compliance,” Cliff said.

The institution is working on automatic emergency braking performance standards, which are planned to be implemented in all new cars and trucks.

Cliff added that the integration of this type of technology that senses pedestrians and obstacles would reduce deaths on American roads. The department head did not give further details about the new rules.

Cliff also commented on the report on crashes involving drones. According to him, despite the leadership of Tesla cars in the number of accidents, it is still too early to draw any conclusions.

The agency’s head said the company uses driver assistance technology in nearly all of its approximately 830,000 vehicles on US roads. He added that this makes it difficult to accurately compare with other automakers.

Cliff also revealed that Tesla is actively collaborating with the agency:

“I think we work well with them […]. “They took action when we identified risks, and that’s appropriate.”

Recall that in June, NHTSA continued its investigation into Tesla and started the “engineering analysis” phase.

In November 2021, Elon Musk’s company recalled nearly 12,000 vehicles due to a software malfunction in the emergency braking system.