The King’s Speech in November 2023 saw the introduction to Parliament of the Automated Vehicle Bill (the “Bill”), after a long road of reviews, recommendations, and round table discussions.

While currently still in the committee stage in the House of Lords, the Bill is expected to come into force around late 2024 or early 2025.

The announcement of the Bill came off the back of the recall of thousands of self-driving cars by different manufacturers across the United States, including General Motors (GM­), which lost its permit to operate driverless taxis in San Francisco, sparked by an unfortunate pedestrian incident. This ultimately led to a recall of their 950 driverless taxis to allow GM to carry out software updates on its collision system.

With US regulators citing a number of safety concerns, the autonomous car industry has been buffeted in the last few weeks. Cruise, the autonomous driving unit of GM, has been forced to lay off 24% of its non-engineering staff, and the industry is bracing for loses in 2024.

Drawing heavily upon a joint four-year review conducted between the Law Commission and the Scottish Law Commission which was published in 2022, the Bill hopes to implement ‘a rigorous safety framework’ to unlock the potential of the estimated £42 billion market and the creation of some 37,000 new skilled jobs in the UK.

The Bill can largely be distilled into four key objectives:

1. Clear legal liability: New regulatory bodies will be created, and the Department for Transport will be given new powers to monitor and authorise self-driving cars. The Bill will see liability shift from the individual to the manufacturer when self-driving is engaged. This will see drivers retaining ‘non-driving responsibilities’ while making them immune from prosecution if an accident occurs while they were not in control. The hope is that this will expedite insurance claims and make for a smoother liability regime.

   However, it is unclear how insurance companies will react, as there are no mass-market policies yet in place and insurers have not been able to collect enough data to appropriately gauge premiums. This may lead to manufacturers not wanting to put vehicles on the road until the insurance regime is stable – which is likely to compound the data issue.

   There are also concerns of unclear cases – for instance, where drivers don’t immediately download the necessary updates or ‘jail break’ the software – where will liability sit?

2. Accountability: Companies themselves will be held accountable for the safety of their vehicles. Manufacturers will have to meet strict safety standards ‘from the point a vehicle is introduced onto our roads’. Penalties and sanctions will be introduced for non-compliance, ranging from fines to the suspension of operations. Criminal prosecution may apply in the most extreme instances.

   Companies will have to put all technology forward for authorisation and continuously maintain it. For instance, the Bill anticipates companies holding permits for carrying passengers for ‘no-user-in-charge-journeys’, with a fully licensed operator remotely overseeing the journey and having overall responsibility for the passenger’s journey.

3. Safety framework: It is proposed that clear thresholds for when a vehicle may operate autonomously will be introduced and manufacturers will be subject to detailed assessments and approvals for both safety and cyber-security. Traffic regulations and laws will be made available digitally for use in automated vehicles and will be used to create digital maps to support safe operation.
4. Consumer protection: The Bill hopes to address misunderstandings of what makes a car ‘self-driving’ and what that truly means in practice. Companies will have to accurately describe the features and make it clear that the driver is still responsible. Misleading marketing is also a concern, and the Bill will set out specific terminology and symbols to be reserved for marketing of authorised self-driving cars.

The tragic accident involving a Cruise vehicle in San Francisco was initially instigated by a human controlled car, but the industry’s recognition as to the severity of the incident and its willingness to “go back to the drawing board” to ensure it never happens again, speaks to some optimism in the industry.

It is estimated 88% of road accidents are attributed to human error and so a robust and well-constructed regime to regulate autonomous vehicles is likely to increase road safety whilst unlocking the seemingly limitless opportunities that self-driving vehicles may bring.

If you need any advice on this issue, or would like to discuss further, please do not hesitate to get in touch with our Technology and Commercial team.

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