Autonomous truck beacon waiver moves closer to October renewal amid legal challenge

The waiver covers Aurora and any carrier operating Level 4 automated trucks that notifies FMCSA and certifies it will follow the terms. FMCSA denied a five-year exemption sought by Aurora and Waymo in December 2024, and Aurora sued the agency in the D.C. Circuit in January 2025. When FMCSA granted the first waiver that October, Aurora called the beacons “a step forward for road safety” and said it would file a dismissal to close that challenge.

FMCSA published a new five-year exemption request from Aurora in April. The comment period closed May 15, and the request remains pending, according to the government’s response. In that request, as summarized by FMCSA, Aurora argued that beacons “eliminate the need for a human to exit the CMV onto the shoulder or traffic lane of a road.”

In his Sept. 8 petition, Giannoulias argues the July waiver, the latest in the series, exceeds FMCSA’s statutory authority, is arbitrary and capricious, and should have gone through the exemption or pilot-program process, both of which require public notice and comment.

FMCSA argues limited exposure

Counting Aurora and Kodiak, “there would only be approximately 45 self-driving trucks operating under the waiver,” the government’s response said, against more than 3,000 miles of interstate highway in Texas.

“Giannoulias’s chances of actually encountering a truck covered by the waiver are vanishingly small,” DOJ attorneys wrote. “The odds of his encountering such a truck when it was disabled are even smaller.”

Three carriers besides Aurora have opted in: Kodiak Robotics, Waabi Logistics and Stack AV, which joined after the July waiver was issued. According to the response, Kodiak had deployed 20 driverless trucks as of March 10, while Waabi and Stack AV had deployed none as of July 31. Aurora told FMCSA in its exemption request that it expects more than 200 Level 4 trucks by the end of 2026.

Giannoulias, who hauls spot-market freight in a 2024 Ram ProMaster 2500, said in a declaration that he made at least six trips in July and August involving Dallas, Houston, Austin, Laredo and El Paso. Several of those cities sit on Aurora’s driverless routes.

DOJ also argued he cannot sue under the Hobbs Act because he never took part in the waiver process, and that his Sept. 3 reconsideration request to FMCSA, still pending, leaves the waiver nonfinal as to him. On the merits, it said nothing in the statute bars back-to-back waivers, citing two COVID-era FMCSA waivers that were each issued seven consecutive times. It said the regulations describing waiver requests do not stop FMCSA from issuing one on its own, and it identified the unique event as “the operation of a CMV without a driver who can place warning devices on the roadway.”

The government cited the July waiver’s finding that differences in driver response to beacons and triangles at straight locations in Aurora’s study were “less than four-tenths of one percent.” It also said no crashes involving a beacon-activated truck have been reported since the waivers began.

“If the mere fact that Giannoulias occasionally takes his cargo van to Texas means that he faces irreparable harm, then literally anyone who occasionally drives in Texas does too,” the filing said. “To state that proposition is to refute it.”

Reply cites study limits and Aledo crash

Giannoulias wrote that the 45-truck figure counts publicized driverless deployments, while the waiver covers Level 4 trucks whether or not a human is aboard. Aurora told FMCSA it had 109 Class 8 trucks, and the reply said most are equipped with the Aurora Driver and beacons.

Aurora’s naturalistic study found a 44.48% response rate to beacons and 44.06% to triangles, according to the reply. “A failure to reject equality is not an affirmative equivalence test,” he wrote.

He called the no-crash statement stale because it traces to the April 15 Federal Register notice on Aurora’s request. In that notice, Aurora said it used the beacons on 34 trucks that traveled more than 500,000 miles under the first waiver, and that the beacons were active for “nearly 10 hours” in total. Aurora reported that, “to the company’s knowledge, the beacons were reliable and operated as expected without any faults, malfunctions, or power issues.”

The reply then points to a July 8 crash near Aledo, Texas. At 5:59 a.m., an Aurora truck on a development mission collided with a pickup that ran a red light at FM 1187 and the Interstate 20 service road. Aurora’s report No. 30530-15781 to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration lists the automated driving system as “Verified Engaged.” NHTSA requires a report when automation was in use at any time within 30 seconds of a crash. Aurora’s narrative says the truck was in manual mode, and that the operator disengaged autonomy “well before the intersection and approximately 12 seconds before the collision.”

The Texas officer’s crash report attached to the reply lists no automation engaged on the truck and a licensed commercial driver at the wheel. It says the truck had a green light and lists the pickup’s disregard of the signal as the contributing factor. The pickup driver was cited. Aurora’s NHTSA narrative gives the same account of the signal. No injuries were reported, and the truck was towed.

The waiver’s terms require beacons to activate “as soon as possible, but in any event within 10 minutes” when a covered truck stops on a highway’s traveled portion or shoulder for anything other than a necessary traffic stop. Giannoulias attached screenshots of two public social media posts from the scene, displaying times of 6:06 and 6:40 a.m. He said the photos show no visible amber beacon light on the disabled truck.

“Still photographs record instants rather than a full flash cycle,” the reply acknowledged.

Giannoulias argues the beacon requirement applied once the collision left the truck stopped and disabled. FMCSA’s response came before the reply and does not address the crash.

Giannoulias also cited FMCSA’s own regulation allowing waiver requests for “a unique, non-emergency event that will take no more than three months to complete,” which the reply says the response never addresses.

He asked the court for an immediate stay, a bar on new opt-ins and successor waivers, and an order directing FMCSA to produce the administrative record, including term reports and all crash and beacon-activation data.

“Without relief, the agency can expire one letter, issue the next, and repeat the jurisdictional argument indefinitely,” the reply said.