CR called in January for program to be maintained amid reports it could be eliminated; DOT order requires companies to report certain crashes in vehicles equipped with driving automation
WASHINGTON, D.C.—The U.S. Department of Transportation announced this week that it will maintain, rather than eliminate, a vital crash reporting program that requires auto manufacturers and autonomous vehicle (AV) companies to report certain crashes in vehicles equipped with driving automation technologies. Consumer Reports, the nonprofit consumer research, testing and advocacy organization, expressed concerns about a new version of the order that carves out some previously required reporting and does not meaningfully address underreporting by companies.
Standing General Order (SGO) 2021-01, issued by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), was created to collect data about crashes in order to track safety trends, identify risks, and help develop performance standards for emerging automation technologies. A Reuters story late last year had reported that one of the President-elect’s transition teams had recommended eliminating the program. In January 2025, CR called on the incoming Transportation Secretary to keep and improve, not scrap, this program.
Cooper Lohr, senior policy analyst for transportation and safety at Consumer Reports, said, “While the changes suggest an effort to improve and streamline the program, they ultimately fail to address the main issues plaguing it. This is a major missed opportunity. Corporate underreporting has been a persistent issue, and these changes do nothing to improve the accuracy or completeness of the data manufacturers are required to submit.
“If the Transportation Department is serious about understanding and addressing road crashes tied to the use of active driving assistance systems, and effectively regulating these technologies, then its top priority shouldn’t be scaling back requirements. It should be focused instead on strengthening the program to ensure regulators have the data they need to make decisions that protect consumers.”
Most notably, the new order no longer requires today’s commercially available vehicles with an active driving assistance system—also known as Level 2 (L2) driving automation—to report crashes in which the subject vehicle must be towed away, as long as the incident did not involve a fatality, an individual being transported to a hospital for medical treatment, a pedestrian or other vulnerable being road user being struck, or an air bag deployment.
The crash reporting program under NHTSA Standing General Order 2021-01 requires manufacturers and operators of vehicles equipped with driving automation systems—including both autonomous vehicles under development, as well as consumer-market vehicles with Level 2 active driving assistance features that combine lane centering and speed control—to report certain crashes to the agency.
At its best, this information can provide crucial insights into how these emerging technologies perform in real-world conditions and help identify safety risks before they lead to widespread harm. However, many companies deploying driving automation technologies have drastically underreported crashes, leaving regulators and the public with an incomplete understanding of safety performance on the roads. CR thinks addressing the issues that lead to underreporting and increasing company participation should be the priority—not reducing the amount of useful safety data that gets reported.
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Media Contact: Emily Akpan, emily.akpan@consumer.org