In its final push to persuade the public that its driverless trucks are ready for public road deployment this month, Aurora Innovation has released a safety report detailing its safety culture and operations.
In its recently released Driverless Safety Report, Aurora states its case just before it is scheduled to deploy driverless trucks on Texas highways. The report gives the public an inside look at how driverless trucks will operate and how the company will ensure the trucks are as safe as it claims they are.
“Publishing detailed safety information is part of our commitment to earning the trust of all stakeholders with a vested interest in autonomous trucking,” Aurora CEO and co-founder Chris Urmson said in a statement. “This includes government leaders and first responders, whose mandate to improve road safety aligns with our own. It includes our valued customers, who diligently improve the strength and efficiency of our supply chain every day. And, crucially, this includes the communities in which we operate, like in Texas, where many consumers and businesses have already received goods hauled by Aurora Driver-powered autonomous trucks.”
Aurora’s driverless trucks are expected to hit Interstate 45 between Dallas and Houston sometime this month.
The company plans to expand driverless operations to a Forth Worth-to-El Paso route and an El-Paso-to-Phoenix route.
According to the report, Aurora driverless trucks are programmed to operate on public roads in Texas, New Mexico and Arizona, including arterial, collector, connector, frontage,
limited-access and highway road types. This includes operating in suburban and urban areas in dense traffic.
Aurora’s trucks will reach speeds as high as 75 mph. However, highway cruising speeds will be limited to 65 mph, with trucks reaching up to 75 mph only when merging or passing.
Driverless truck operations will be limited when it comes to less-than-clear weather conditions. The safety report states the trucks can operate in light-to-medium rain, sustained winds up to 25 mph and wind gusts up to 35 mph. When weather conditions are not within the system’s parameters, the truck will slow down or pull over to an exit or shoulder.
Mitigating safety risks and unforeseen circumstances
Perhaps the biggest question on motorists’ minds is how Aurora’s driverless trucks will interact with human drivers and respond to unexpected events. A good portion of the 75-page safety report addresses those concerns.
Aurora claims its driverless trucks are “designed to act safely around others on the road and to be predictable.”
“By combining the best of modern AI approaches with invariants, we are able to build a driver that is both predictable in its behavior and trained to follow the rules of the road,” Aurora states in the safety report.
In addition to more than 2.6 million miles logged with a safety driver, Aurora has used simulations to train its trucks. Those simulations include common scenarios experienced on the road, scenarios rarely encountered and scenarios never experienced during on-road testing but identified through the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s crash type database.
Additionally, Aurora has evaluated real-life examples of fatal crashes involving Class 8 trucks along I-45 from Dallas to Houston. The company claims that of the 29 fatal crashes that occurred in scenarios in which one of its driverless trucks could have operated, the crash would have been avoided with its trucks.
“Many drivers may only encounter a roadway collision a few times in their life, but the Aurora Driver has experienced millions of these scenarios in simulation,” the report states.
If something goes wrong with the truck, like a tire blowout, the Fault Management System will identify the issue and prompt the truck to move to safety. If possible, the driverless truck will move to a “preferred pullover” on a frontage road to minimize safety risks associated with stopping on the shoulder.
Aurora’s driverless truck fleet will be monitored by humans at its command center. Trained specialists will provide human support and judgment, including speaking with police or advising an appropriate course of action during an unusual road closure.
However, the humans at the command center will not be able to remotely control a driverless truck. Rather, staff at the command center can provide suggestions to the truck, which will act on them if it determines it can do so safely.
Does a human remotely take over if the Aurora Driver sees something unusual? Short answer: No. But a human is in the loop. Our command center acts like a dispatch station for our fleet. If the Aurora Driver encounters something unfamiliar, it can request support or roadside… pic.twitter.com/AzHoytH8FX
— Aurora (@aurora_inno) March 24, 2025
Butting heads with FMCSA over warning devices
Aurora is currently in a legal and regulatory battle with the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration over the placement of warning devices.
Last December, FMCSA denied Aurora’s request to be exempt from regulations overseeing warning devices when truck is stopped on the shoulder of a highway. That regulation requires specific placement of a safety triangles around the truck, which cannot be done without a human driver present.
When denying the exemption, FMCSA hinted at a possible path forward for Aurora.
“FMCSA notes that this decision does not preclude applicants or others from seeking an exemption to use better-defined warning beacons for specified companies in particular locations, as one of the bases of the agency’s decision here is the broad reach of applicants’ request,” the agency wrote in the notice.
In January, Aurora filed a lawsuit against FMCSA, claiming the agency’s decision “is at odds with the law and with FMCSA’s own public commitment to support safety innovation, and it inhibits the further development of vital self-driving technologies.”
“The current warning system to indicate when a truck is stopped on the side of the road – hand placement of warning triangles – is not only over half a century old, it has never been updated and is not backed by any data or research showing that it improves safety,” Aurora President Ossa Fisher wrote in a blog.
In its safety report, Aurora explains its “human machine interface,” a light on the exterior that illuminates in various colors in steady-burn or specific flash patterns indicating different meanings. A flashing amber light will warn motorists of the driverless truck’s presence when stopped on the shoulder. The report makes no mention of other, DOT-compliant warning devices.
Too soon?
According to at least one researcher and most motorists, driverless trucks may not be ready to hit the public roadways.
In a recently published study, George Mason University Professor Missy Cummings showed how “phantom braking” and the unpredictability of human drivers have caused self-driving cars in California to have higher crash rates.
Cummings found that self-driving cars were unexpectedly hard-braking more frequently than human drivers. Since those crashes occurred on urban streets, the damage was minimal at low speeds. That may not be the case if one of Aurora’s driverless trucks suddenly brakes.
“I come from a long line of truckers,” Cummings said. “That truck is going to jackknife. There’s going to be carnage on the road. So for trucks, the ramifications of the phantom-braking events are far more dire than, I think, for your average passenger vehicle.”
Aurora states in its safety report that if the rate of hard braking increases or deviates from historical expectations, the system will prompt an investigation to understand the root cause.
Regardless of what studies or safety reports say, most people are still not OK with self-driving vehicles. In February, AAA’s annual survey on the topic revealed that more than 60% of Americans are afraid of driverless vehicles. LL
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