S 3742 AV Safety Data Act 2026 (Improve incident reporting with respect to certain autonomous vehicles)

• Authority: United States Congress
• Parent authority: Federal government
• Jurisdiction: United States
• Collections: U.S. federal laws
• Most recent activity: Proposed
• Most recent activity date: 2026-01-29

Risk subdomain coverage

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

• Lack of capability or robustness
• Lack of transparency or interpretability

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

• Compromise of privacy

All other risk subdomains had no coverage in this document.

Risk Coverage Summary

The document primarily addresses AI system safety and transparency risks (subdomains 7.3 and 7.4), with strong focus on system robustness failures and operational transparency through mandatory incident reporting. Minor coverage of privacy protection (2.1) through data collection limitations.

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.

• Agriculture, Mining, Construction & Manufacturing
• Information
• Public Administration (excl. National Security)

All other sectors had no coverage in this document.

Sectors Summary

The document primarily governs the Trade, Transportation and Utilities sector, specifically addressing autonomous vehicle operations in transportation. It may have minor implications for the Information sector given that AV manufacturers often operate in technology/software domains.

Legislative Status

Hard Law

Legislative Status Summary

This is a federal bill from the United States Congress that uses mandatory language throughout and establishes binding legal obligations on covered entities with regulatory enforcement by NHTSA.

Actors

Proposer

• Entity Types: AI_Governance_Actor
• Entities: United States Congress; Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America
• Summary: The document is a bill enacted by Congress, as indicated by the standard legislative enactment clause and identification as a Congressional bill (S 3742).

Target

• Entity Types: AI_Developer, AI_Deployer
• Entities: covered entity - manufacturers or operators subject to Third Amended Standing General Order 2021-01
• Summary: The document explicitly targets 'covered entities' defined as manufacturers or operators of autonomous vehicles with Automated Driving Systems or Level 2 Advanced Driver Assistance Systems.

Enforcer

• Entity Types: AI_Governance_Actor
• Entities: National Highway Traffic Safety Administration; Administrator of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration
• Summary: NHTSA and its Administrator are explicitly designated to promulgate regulations, require reporting, and enforce compliance with the Act's requirements.

Monitor

• Entity Types: AI_Governance_Actor
• Entities: National Highway Traffic Safety Administration; Administrator of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration
• Summary: NHTSA receives monthly reports from covered entities, makes data publicly available, and has authority to revise reporting requirements, indicating ongoing monitoring responsibility.

AI Lifecycle Stages

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

• Deploy
• Operate and Monitor

AI Lifecycle Summary

The document focuses exclusively on the Deploy and Operate and Monitor lifecycle stages, requiring incident reporting and transparency for autonomous vehicles already deployed on public roads. It does not address design, development, data collection, model building, or pre-deployment validation stages.

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 Automated Driving Systems and Level 2 Advanced Driver Assistance Systems. These are task-specific, predictive AI systems deployed in autonomous vehicles. The document does not mention AI models, foundation models, generative AI, frontier AI, general purpose AI, open-weight models, or compute thresholds.