Washington — The Department of Transportation anticipates publishing a supplemental notice of proposed rulemaking for a rule that would require automatic emergency braking systems on heavy trucks, the federal government’s latest regulatory agenda shows.
The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration lists 23 proposals and 24 final rules in the 2026 Regulatory Plan and Unified Agenda of Federal Regulatory and Deregulatory Actions, issued July 3.
The AEB proposal is a joint rulemaking between the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and FMCSA.
According to the Code of Federal Regulations, a supplemental notice of proposed rulemaking may be issued if a proposed rule “has been substantially changed from the original notice” or if “considerable time has elapsed” since the original notice was published. The agencies list July as the targeted publication date.
NHTSA and FMCSA issued an initial proposal in July 2023, accepting comments through Sept. 5 of that year. Under the proposed rule, AEB systems – which “mitigate the frequency and severity of rear-end collisions with vehicles,” the agencies state – would be a requirement on trucks and buses with a gross vehicle weight rating of at least 10,000 pounds, as mandated under the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.
“Pursuant to a statutory mandate” in the act, the regulatory agenda states, “this notice will seek comments on a revised proposal to require and/or standardize equipment performance for automatic emergency braking on heavy trucks and motor carrier maintenance requirements for vehicles equipped with such technology.
“For several years, NHTSA has researched forward collision avoidance and mitigation technology on heavy vehicles, including forward collision warning and automatic emergency braking systems. This rulemaking proposes test procedures for measuring performance of these systems.”
The White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs typically issues a regulatory agenda twice a year to provide the status of and projected dates for all potential regulations listed in three stages: pre-rule, proposed rule and final rule.
Among the other FMCSA proposals listed is a measure that would revise an agency final rule requiring commercial motor vehicle drivers to track their hours of service through electronic logging devices instead of paper logs.
Although the rule has been effective since February 2016, the agenda states that FMCSA staff, state enforcement personnel, ELD vendors and industry have learned “many lessons” about the equipment “in the intervening years.” The proposal would aim to “streamline and improve the clarity of the regulatory text and ELD specifications and answer recurring questions” while addressing technical modifications that could improve device usability.
As with the ELD proposal, FMCSA lists November as the target publication date for a proposed rule covering possible updates to the methodology it uses to determine if truck and bus companies are fit to operate safely.
The agency published an advance notice of proposed rulemaking in August 2023 and previously hosted public listening sessions that weighed input on issues including:
- Evaluating the current three-tiered rating system versus changing to a proposed single rating only when a carrier is found to be unfit.
- Using inspection data and FMCSA’s Safety Measurement System.
- Incorporating driver behavior into Safety Fitness Determination ratings.
- Revising the list of safety violations used to calculate the rating and adjusting the weights allocated to particular violations, such as increasing the weight for unsafe driving violations.
November also is the planned date for an agency final rule that clarifies the definitions of the terms “any agricultural commodity,” “livestock,” and “nonprocessed food” in the agency’s HOS regulations for commercial truck drivers.
Current regulations provide exemptions in HOS requirements during harvesting and planting season in each state. Drivers are exempt in a 150-air-mile radius from the source of that agricultural commodity.
FMCSA published an ANPRM in July 2019 and an interim final rule in November 2020.
