NHTSA chief: mandatory steering wheels for self-driving cars no longer make sense

NHTSA Director Jonathan Morrison said Thursday that federal requirements forcing autonomous vehicles to include steering wheels and brake pedals no longer make sense for cars that were never designed to be driven by a person.

“Does it still make sense to require manual controls in a vehicle that’s designed from the start not to be driven by a human?” Morrison asked in an interview with CNET. “I think the answer is becoming pretty clear.”

His remarks signal a turning point for US autonomous vehicle regulation. Companies like Uber and Tesla are already building robotaxis with no driver cockpit at all. Waymo’s fleet still supports remote human takeover, but the broader industry is pushing toward fully driverless designs where a steering wheel is just dead weight.

There’s an obvious trade-off. Without manual controls, passengers have no way to physically take over during a crash or extreme situation. Critics point to that gap as a safety question regulators haven’t fully addressed.

Morrison acknowledged that tension directly. NHTSA’s job, he said, is to oversee safety — not to slow down technology that’s already on the road.

“We want these companies to succeed, and we want them to keep evolving,” he said. “But all of this needs to be done the right way, safely.”