The Federal Motor Service Security Administration granted a five-year exemption on Wednesday that lets carriers operating Degree 4 autonomous vehicles use cab-mounted warning beacons instead of reflective triangles. The exemption runs via Oct. 7, 2031, and covers Aurora Operations plus every other Degree 4 provider that notifies the company first, below a discover signed by Administrator Derek Barrs.
It replaces 4 three-month waivers Aurora has operated below since October 2025. Kodiak AI, Waabi and Stack AV opted in alongside the way in which.
“Going from a brief waiver to a five-year exemption provides the business plenty of confidence,” mentioned Jeff Farrah, CEO of the Autonomous Car Business Affiliation, in an interview with BigRig. “As these firms scale, increase cash within the capital markets and arrange enterprise partnerships, there are sometimes questions on what they’re going to do concerning the warning-triangle situation. Now there’s a agency reply.”
Bart Teeter, director of fleet and operational security at Bot Auto, mentioned in a press release that the exemption “will give the autonomous freight business a key piece of regulatory certainty that can permit us to proceed to scale safely.”
Federal guidelines require the driving force of a truck stopped on a street or shoulder to activate hazard flashers and place warning gadgets in entrance of and behind the truck inside 10 minutes. The required gadgets are three bidirectional reflective triangles or at the least six fusees.
“Now, with autonomous automobiles, we have to evolve a few of these necessities, since with an autonomous truck there’s not going to be anyone who can get out and put warning triangles behind the car,” Farrah mentioned.
Beacon specs and working limits
The beacons have to be amber, meet the Class 1 photometric necessities of SAE J595 and sit at the least 100 inches off the bottom, at or above the highest of the aspect mirrors. Every truck wants at the least one rearward-facing gentle on either side of the cab and one forward-facing gentle on the entrance, with redundant energy to forestall a single-point failure.
They have to activate inside 5 minutes of a cease and preserve flashing, alongside the usual hazard flashers, till the truck strikes once more or is recovered. FMCSA referred to as the five-minute restrict “a transparent, verifiable security enchancment” over the ten minutes drivers get to put triangles.
Vehicles might run solely on roads inside their validated operational design area. Carriers can’t haul hazardous supplies or passengers, or run any operation that will require an H, X, P or S endorsement if a human had been driving. Doubles are restricted to 2 28-foot trailers, and triples are barred. Tankers are permitted.
Each provider aside from Aurora should electronic mail FMCSA earlier than beginning, certifying below penalty of perjury that it has the beacons and can comply with the phrases. Carriers should report any crash whereas the beacons are on, or ought to have been on, inside 5 calendar days. Annual studies on beacon malfunctions and energy points are due by Nov. 1. States might not implement conflicting guidelines on interstate operations coated by the exemption.
“Aurora filed the exemption, and Aurora was a part of the primary waiver course of, however this enables any equally located firm to make use of it,” Farrah mentioned. “It’s not simply Aurora. It’s every other autonomous car firm doing these operations.”
From 2024 denial to five-year exemption
FMCSA denied Aurora and Waymo’s 2023 request for a similar aid in December 2024. Exempting “a category of unspecified carriers utilizing unspecified tools on unspecified automobiles solely additional undermines the claimed possible equal degree of security,” the company wrote on the time.
The brand new exemption names the tools and the automobiles, and it makes each provider establish itself.
After the denial, FMCSA issued Aurora a slender waiver. From Oct. 10, 2025, via Jan. 9, 2026, Aurora ran the beacons on 34 vehicles that traveled greater than 500,000 miles, the corporate reported in its utility. The beacons had been energetic for practically 10 hours, and Aurora reported no faults, malfunctions or energy points. FMCSA mentioned the vehicles weren’t concerned in any collisions whereas stopped with the beacons on. Aurora filed its new five-year request in April with limits much like the waiver’s.
Two research filed with each purposes bought a re-examination. In 2024, the company flagged that Aurora’s October 2022 “Naturalistic Examine of Warning Gadget Equivalency” confirmed a barely decrease share of drivers responding to beacons than to triangles in 5 of eight situations. This time it pointed to response distance from the identical research: motorists started evasive strikes a median of 135.71 meters from the beacons and 133.24 meters from the triangles. A Virginia Tech Transportation Institute research ready for Waymo in August 2022 discovered beacons drew earlier braking at evening.
Opponents cite trailers, energy and climate
Aurora’s utility drew 402 feedback. Opponents included the Proprietor-Operator Unbiased Drivers Affiliation (OOIDA), the Truck Security Coalition, Advocates for Freeway and Auto Security, REAL Girls in Trucking and plenty of particular person truck drivers. Supporters included the American Trucking Associations, Waymo, Kodiak AI, Volvo Group North America, Amazon and the Nationwide Fraternal Order of Police.
Critics argued a jackknifed or angled trailer may block cab-mounted lights and {that a} single electrical failure may knock the beacons out. Others mentioned the research didn’t cowl the vary of climate, street and lighting situations vehicles face. Advocates mentioned practically 10 hours of beacon use throughout deliberate stops was not a enough foundation for a five-year exemption. The Small Enterprise in Transportation Coalition mentioned granting the exemption “would open a can of worms” by holding driverless vehicles to extra lenient requirements than vehicles pushed by people. OOIDA urged FMCSA to attend for its personal research of warning gadgets for stopped vehicles.
FMCSA answered that the phrases confine vehicles to their validated operational design domains. It mentioned it lacks knowledge exhibiting triangles considerably enhance driver response time, and that whether or not such gadgets enhance site visitors security in any respect is a traditionally unresolved query.
The Autonomous Car Business Affiliation and Volvo urged FMCSA to permit beacons on conventional vehicles. The company wrote that updating warning gadget necessities for all industrial automobiles “could also be ripe for future regulatory motion.”
“Excessive-visibility, cab-mounted warning beacons are a essential, Twenty first-century resolution that enhances roadside security by instantly alerting different street customers with out ever needing to place an individual in hurt’s means,” mentioned Gerardo Interiano, senior vice chairman of presidency relations and public affairs at Aurora, in a press release.
The business has coalesced round cab-mounted beacons, an thought Waymo and Aurora first conceived, Farrah mentioned.
“This can be a essential step, as a result of this is among the points that has been actually problematic for the deployment of autonomous vehicles,” he mentioned. “Now we’ve a pathway to deploying within the U.S.”
The submit AV truck fleets win 5-Yr exemption on warning beacons appeared first on BigRig.