HR 4419 Autonomous Vehicle Accessibility Act 2025

• Authority: United States Congress
• Parent authority: Federal government
• Jurisdiction: United States
• Collections: U.S. federal laws
• Most recent activity: Proposed
• Most recent activity date: 2025-07-16

Risk subdomain coverage

Minimal coverage — Brief mention but no specific mitigations, recommendations or governance measures relating to the risk subdomain are described.

• Unfair discrimination and misrepresentation
• Lack of capability or robustness

All other risk subdomains had no coverage in this document.

Risk Coverage Summary

The document has minimal coverage, focusing primarily on unfair discrimination (1.1) against individuals with disabilities in autonomous vehicle licensing, and touches on system robustness (7.3) through infrastructure accessibility requirements. Coverage is concentrated in discrimination prevention and accessibility considerations.

Sector coverage

Good coverage — Comprehensive governance measures or mitigations with clear procedures relating to the sector are explicitly described.

• Trade, Transportation & Utilities

Minimal coverage — Brief mention but no specific mitigations, recommendations or governance measures relating to the sector are described.

• Public Administration (excl. National Security)

All other sectors had no coverage in this document.

Sectors Summary

The document primarily governs the Transportation sector (Trade, Transportation and Utilities) with respect to autonomous vehicle deployment and ride-hail services. It also governs Public Administration by regulating state licensing practices for ADS-equipped vehicles.

Legislative Status

Hard Law

Legislative Status Summary

This is a Congressional bill with mandatory prohibitions on discriminatory licensing practices and mandatory study requirements, referencing existing hard law enforcement framework (Americans with Disabilities Act). Uses binding language 'shall not' and 'shall seek to enter into'.

Actors

Proposer

• Entity Types: AI_Governance_Actor
• Summary: The bill was introduced by two named Representatives and referred to the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, which are legislative governance bodies.

Target

• Entity Types: AI_Governance_Actor, AI_Deployer
• Summary: The bill prohibits states from discriminatory licensing practices and regulates the operation of ADS-equipped vehicles, particularly ride-hail services. States are governance actors, while vehicle operators and ride-hail services are AI deployers.

Enforcer

• Entity Types: AI_Governance_Actor
• Summary: The bill references compliance with Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act, which is enforced by the Department of Justice through federal civil rights enforcement mechanisms and court actions.

Monitor

• Entity Types: AI_Governance_Actor
• Summary: The Secretary of Transportation is directed to engage the National Academies to conduct a study on accessible infrastructure for ADS-equipped vehicles, establishing monitoring and evaluation responsibilities.

AI Lifecycle Stages

Lifecycle stages covered by the documents, as defined in the OECD Framework for the Classification of AI Systems

• Plan and Design
• Deploy
• Operate and Monitor

AI Lifecycle Summary

The document addresses multiple lifecycle stages with primary focus on deployment (licensing requirements for Level 4/5 ADS vehicles), operation and monitoring (infrastructure study for safe pickup/dropoff), and some coverage of planning and design (infrastructure changes to improve accessibility). The bill governs autonomous driving systems specifically.

Technical Scope

Terms relating to technical scope that are mentioned or implicitly referenced in the document

• AI Systems
• Task-specific AI

Technical Scope Summary

The document explicitly addresses AI systems in the form of ADS-equipped vehicles (Automated Driving Systems). It specifically covers task-specific AI (autonomous driving at SAE Levels 4 and 5) and references SAE J3016 definitions. No mention of models, frontier AI, general purpose AI, foundation models, generative AI, predictive AI, open-source models, or compute thresholds.