HB3360, the Driver Technology and Pedestrian Safety Act of 2025, directs the Secretary of Transportation to arrange for the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine to study how driver-controlled technology in motor vehicles affects severe traffic injuries and fatalities. The study must examine touch screen-based systems and other in-vehicle controls, including their prevalence, design, brightness, size, and relationship to driver distraction, property damage, and crashes involving pedestrians, bicyclists, and other vulnerable road users. It also requires a comparison between the crash risk associated with using built-in touch screens and using smartphones while driving, and it may consider road conditions, time of day, weather, traffic, and commercial motor vehicle presence.
The bill further requires the Department of Transportation to report the study findings to Congress and publish them publicly, then submit recommendations for reducing severe injuries and fatalities. Those recommendations must also address whether federal crash-reporting and survey systems should be updated to better capture data on touch screen use and smartphone use while driving. The bill distinguishes between recommendations that agencies can implement under existing authority and those that would require new federal legislation.
In terms of legal effect, the bill does not itself regulate vehicle technology or impose new safety standards. Instead, it creates a federal research and reporting mandate and could lead to future administrative guidance, updated data collection practices, or later legislation affecting vehicle interface design, crash reporting, or traffic safety standards. It defines key terms such as driver-controlled technology, tactile motor vehicle controls, touch screen-based systems, commercial motor vehicles, and passenger motor vehicles, and it includes a rule of construction preserving existing regulatory authority.
The overall sentiment reflected in the available context appears generally supportive and noncontroversial, as the bill was forwarded by subcommittee to the full committee by voice vote. That suggests broad agreement on the value of studying the safety effects of in-vehicle touch screens and related technologies. Because there are no recorded floor votes or committee transcript excerpts, there is little evidence of organized opposition in the available materials.
The main point of potential contention is likely the bill’s focus on touch screens and driver-controlled technology as contributors to distraction and crashes, which could be viewed by some as a precursor to future regulation of automakers, infotainment systems, or smartphone integration. Another possible issue is the breadth of the study mandate and the recommendation to alter federal crash data systems, which may raise questions about cost, data collection burdens, and whether existing federal authority is sufficient to address the problem.
The bill would amend federal transportation policy by requiring the Department of Transportation to commission a National Academies study and then report recommendations to Congress on driver-controlled technology and crash risk. It would not directly change state traffic laws, but it could influence federal safety guidance, crash data collection, and future legislation or regulations affecting vehicle infotainment systems, touch screens, smartphone projection, and distracted-driving research. The bill also targets federal reporting systems such as FARS, NOPUS, and MMUCC for potential updates to better capture technology-use data.
Available legislative context suggests a favorable or at least low-conflict reception. The bill was advanced from subcommittee to full committee by voice vote, which typically indicates consensus or limited opposition at that stage. No recorded votes or transcript excerpts are available showing substantive debate, but the measure appears to be framed as a safety study rather than a regulatory crackdown, which may have helped it attract broad support.
The likely areas of contention are whether touch screen-based systems are a significant enough safety problem to justify federal study, whether the bill implicitly points toward future regulation of automakers and infotainment technology, and whether federal crash-reporting systems should be expanded to collect more detailed driver-distraction data. Stakeholders most likely to scrutinize the bill include automakers, technology suppliers, and transportation safety advocates, with the latter likely supporting the study and the former potentially concerned about downstream regulatory implications and data-collection burdens.