The SELF DRIVE Act — the Safely Ensuring Lives Future Deployment and Research In Vehicle Evolution Act — is a proposed federal law that would set national rules for self-driving cars. It is not law. The original bill (H.R. 3388) passed the House on September 6, 2017, but died in the Senate.1Congress.gov. H.R.3388 – SELF DRIVE Act A new version (H.R. 7390) was introduced in 2025 and is still working through Congress.2Congress.gov. H.R.7390 – SELF DRIVE Act of 2025 Until one of them passes, no comprehensive federal law governs autonomous vehicles, and a patchwork of state rules fills most of the gap.
Where the Bill Stands
The House passed H.R. 3388 by voice vote on September 6, 2017. The Senate received it the next day and referred it to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, where it stalled. Opposition focused on the breadth of federal preemption over state safety rules, exemptions from existing standards without firm deadlines for replacements, the exclusion of commercial trucks, and consumer protection and cybersecurity concerns. The 115th Congress ended in January 2019 without action.
For roughly six years, Congress made no serious progress on a comprehensive bill. Then in 2025 the SELF DRIVE Act of 2025 (H.R. 7390) was introduced in the 119th Congress, carrying the original framework forward with new provisions on crash reporting and occupant safety. That bill has not passed.
Federal Rules Versus State Rules
The central design of both versions is a line between what Washington controls and what states control. Under the original bill, only the federal government could regulate the design, construction, and performance of highly automated vehicles and their driving systems. States could not enforce their own rules on those technical questions unless the state rules were identical to the federal ones.3Congress.gov. H.R.3388 – SELF DRIVE Act
States would keep their traditional powers: traffic laws, registration, safety and emissions inspections, insurance, and liability. The 2025 version lists these areas more explicitly and adds congestion management, consumer protection laws, and environmental regulations to the state side of the line. It also states plainly that following the federal requirements does not shield anyone from common-law liability, so crash victims can still sue.2Congress.gov. H.R.7390 – SELF DRIVE Act of 2025
Preemption was the single biggest fight in the Senate in 2017. Critics said it would strip states of the power to protect residents before adequate federal standards existed. Supporters said the technology could not scale under fifty different engineering rulebooks. The disagreement carries into the 2025 debate.
Exemptions From Existing Safety Standards
Federal motor vehicle safety standards were written for cars with human drivers. They require steering wheels, brake pedals, mirrors, and other equipment a fully autonomous vehicle may not need. The original bill expanded the Secretary of Transportation’s power to exempt highly automated vehicles from those standards, provided the manufacturer showed the vehicle was at least as safe as a conventional one meeting the standard.
The bill phased in how many exempt vehicles each manufacturer could deploy:
- Up to 25,000 in the first 12 months
- Up to 50,000 in the second 12 months
- Up to 100,000 per year in the third year and beyond
Renewals after the fourth year could not exceed 100,000 vehicles in a 12-month period.3Congress.gov. H.R.3388 – SELF DRIVE Act For scale, the existing exemption process still in force today caps noncompliant vehicles at 2,500 per manufacturer per year.4NHTSA. Trump’s Transportation Secretary Sean P. Duffy Advances AV Framework
The 2025 version leans less on exemptions and more on documentation. Manufacturers must submit a “safety case” describing how the automated system handles driving tasks, what happens when it fails, and how the vehicle warns nearby road users during an emergency. The bill also sets a September 30, 2027 deadline for the Secretary of Transportation to issue a final rule creating a new safety standard designed specifically for vehicles with automated driving systems.
Cybersecurity Plans
Both versions require every manufacturer to have a written cybersecurity plan before selling or importing a highly automated vehicle. The plan must cover how the company detects and responds to attacks, identifies and fixes software and hardware vulnerabilities, and shares threat information with federal agencies and industry groups.
The 2025 version adds detail. Plans must describe defenses against false or malicious control commands (someone remotely telling the car to do something it shouldn’t), intrusion detection systems, incident response procedures, and a process for updating those defenses as threats change. Neither version specifies exact technical standards. That was deliberate: prescribing specific technology in a statute would age poorly. Critics of the approach say it leaves too much discretion with manufacturers and makes enforcement harder.
Privacy Plans
Autonomous vehicles collect a lot of data: locations, timing, passenger counts, and in some cases interior camera footage. The original bill required a written privacy plan disclosing what the vehicle collects, how the data is stored, and when it gets shared with third parties. Manufacturers had to make this information clear and accessible to owners and occupants.
Enforcement would sit with the Federal Trade Commission, which could act against manufacturers that failed to follow their own stated privacy policies. The bill did not set specific penalty tiers. Some senators criticized that model as too weak, arguing it relied on the FTC’s general authority rather than creating vehicle-specific penalties.
Crash Data and Occupant Controls in the 2025 Bill
The 2025 bill adds two features the original did not have. The first is a National Automated Vehicle Safety Data Repository. Manufacturers would have to report every crash involving an engaged automated driving system, including time and location, the vehicles involved, whether a pedestrian or cyclist was struck, any injuries, and whether local authorities investigated. Reports are due within 30 days of the crash or 10 days after the manufacturer learns of it, whichever is later. Manufacturers must also submit quarterly reports on total miles driven with the automated system engaged, including commercial miles. The data would be public, subject to protections for confidential business information.
The second addition is occupant safety. Any self-driving vehicle carrying passengers must give occupants a way to command the system to pull over safely from inside the vehicle, and must let occupants exit safely once it stops. The provision responds to incidents in which passengers in autonomous ride-hailing vehicles could not stop or redirect a car behaving unexpectedly.
What Governs Autonomous Vehicles Now
Because neither version has become law, federal regulation of autonomous vehicles remains thin. NHTSA relies on existing authority to issue voluntary guidance and to run the 2,500-vehicle exemption program. In 2025, the Department of Transportation announced an AV framework organized around three priorities: safety for vehicles already on public roads, removing unnecessary regulatory barriers, and enabling commercial deployment. NHTSA also proposed amending several specific safety standards to accommodate vehicles without manual controls.4NHTSA. Trump’s Transportation Secretary Sean P. Duffy Advances AV Framework
Those are incremental moves. The core questions the SELF DRIVE Act tried to answer — how many autonomous vehicles can be deployed, what preempts state law, who enforces cybersecurity and privacy rules — are still open. Manufacturers, states, and regulators continue to operate in the gap between rules written for human drivers and a technology that increasingly does not need one.