Legal reforms to allow safe introduction of automated vehicles announced
The Law Commission of England and Wales and the Scottish Law Commission (the Law Commissions) have today (26 January 2022) published their joint report, making recommendations for the safe and responsible introduction of self-driving vehicles.
The report recommends introducing a new Automated Vehicles Act, to regulate vehicles that can drive themselves. It recommends drawing a clear distinction between features which just assist drivers, such as adaptive cruise control, and those that are self-driving.
Under the Law Commissions’ proposals, when a car is authorised by a regulatory agency as having “self-driving features” and those features are in-use, the person in the driving seat would no longer be responsible for how the car drives. Instead, the company or body that obtained the authorisation (an Authorised Self-Driving Entity) would face regulatory sanctions if anything goes wrong