Future demand for autonomous vehicles will be significantly influenced by the extent to which legislators can simultaneously promote innovation and flexibility while addressing safety concerns in the rules they write, an expert has said.
Ben Gardner of Pinsent Masons, a specialist in the regulation of self-driving vehicles and the future of mobility, was commenting in light of a report by legal news provider MLex that the UK government is set to announce plans for new legislation on autonomous vehicles within the King’s Speech due on 7 November.
The UK government previously said it intended to take forward proposals developed by the Law Commission of England and Wales and Scottish Law Commission in respect of self-driving vehicles regulation in a new Transport Bill before the end of summer 2023.
Gardner said: “The automotive industry is at an inflexion point with connected, automated and electric vehicles paving the way for more advanced and greener transport solutions. There will be no ‘quick fix’, but the Law Commissions have already laid out the foundations for what a future regulatory landscape should look like.”
“The government needs to take these foundations and work with industry and other stakeholders to develop a Bill that is both innovative and agile but also creates a culture of safety and transparency. Otherwise demand for automated vehicles could collapse before the industry gains real traction with the public,” he said.
In a report last month, UK MPs on the Transport Committee described current UK laws for self-driving vehicles as “archaic and limiting, especially concerning testing and legal liability”. It said the government must “bring forward and pass comprehensive legislation in the next parliamentary session to put in place the robust regulatory framework it promised” to ensure the UK’s self-driving vehicles industry can maintain its “competitive advantage”.
Gardner, who gave evidence to the Transport Committee’s inquiry, said at the time of the MPs’ report that the UK is in a global race with other countries to attract investment into the self-driving vehicle industry. “To remain competitive on the global stage, we need regulatory action that will give businesses and other institutions the confidence to test, develop and commercialise self-driving vehicles in the UK – and not elsewhere,” he said.
The Law Commissions’ proposals to regulate automated vehicles on roads or other public places in Britain were set out in early 2022 at the end of an extensive review they had engaged in since 2018, which involved three separate consultation exercises and looked at the changes to UK law and regulation required to facilitate the use of autonomous vehicles in the UK.
Under their proposals, distinct regulatory regimes for self-driving vehicles where someone would sit in the driving seat and be able to take manual control over the vehicle – a so-called ‘user-in-charge’ – and for ‘no user-in-charge’ vehicles where journeys could be completed without on-board human intervention – would be developed. The law would also distinguish between vehicle features that merely aid drivers, such as adaptive cruise control, and those that deliver self-driving. Self-driving vehicles would be subject to a new authorisation scheme before they could be used in Britain.
A recent study into the potential economic opportunity of connected and automated mobility (CAM) technology to the UK found that the technology could deliver a £66 billion annual boost to the UK economy by 2040 and create 342,000 additional jobs. The study, carried out by KPMG on behalf of UK car manufacturing industry body the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) in partnership with Innovate UK, the Automotive Council, and Zenzic, also found that CAM could help save almost 4,000 lives and prevent 60,000 serious accidents between now and 2040.
Mike Hawes, chief executive of the SMMT, said, though, that achieving those benefits is “highly dependent on several key government interventions”, including regulatory reform, funding, skills development, and collaboration with industry on a public communications campaign.
