This SAE Information Report classifies and defines a harmonized set of safety principles intended to be considered by ADS and ADS-equipped vehicle development stakeholders. The set of safety principles herein is based on the collection and analysis of existing information from multiple entities, reflecting the content and spirit of their efforts, including:

SAE ITC AVSC Best Practices
CAMP Automated Vehicle Research for Enhanced Safety - Final Report
RAND Report - Measuring Automated Vehicle Safety: Forging a Framework
U.S. DOT: Automated Driving Systems 2.0 - A Vision for Safety
Safety First for Automated Driving (SaFAD)
UNECE WP29 amendment proposal
UNECE/TRANS/WP.29/GRVA/2019/13
On a Formal Model of Safe and Scalable Self-Driving Cars (Intel RSS model)
SAE J3018

This SAE Information Report provides guidance for the consideration and application of the safety principles for the development and deployment of ADS and ADS-equipped vehicles. This SAE Information Report is not intended to encompass all aspects of system-level safety for an ADS-equipped vehicle, including communication with other traffic participants. Addressing all identified safety principles is intended to support, but not fully ensure, comprehensive system-level safety.

As an SAE Information Report, this document is non-normative, imposes no requirements, and does not address:

Requirements for methodology, metrics, and/or acceptance thresholds.
Ethics-related safety principles, or any link between the safety principles defined in this document and ethical studies/frameworks.
Conformance with safety principles for purposes of liability and/or fault assignment.

As ADS technology and deployment are expanded in the future, this document may be reconsidered for future revision including normative requirements.