Self-Driving Vehicles: Is the future closer than we thought?

On 19 August 2022, the government published a report by the Centre for Data Ethics and Innovation (CDEI) entitled “Responsible Innovation in Self-Driving Vehicles”.

Self-driving vehicles (AVs) have, for some time now, been heralded as the transport of the future. This is likely due to a number of reasons, including an overall enhanced level of road safety, and improved accessibility for those who are immobile or otherwise unable to drive.

In tandem with the publishing of the CDEI report, the government also began a consultation concerning the proposed safety ambition for AVs. This is intended to be used as a foundation for a new safety framework, which would feed into the government’s response to recommendations previously made by the English and Scottish Law Commissions following their own review of the key issues.

Of course, under the current legal framework, drivers are licenced as being competent to drive, and will be held accountable for their actions – not only within a criminal liability context (for example, speeding offences and at the more severe end of the spectrum, causing death by dangerous driving), but also within a civil liability context (for example, non-lethal road traffic collisions and other forms of consequential property damage).

This gives rise to a number of interesting and, as yet, unanswered legal questions. For example, where an AV is involved in some sort of accident and it is evident that the human driver was being ‘driver-assisted’ (which is distinct from where the AV was driving itself), where does the legal liability fall? The Automated and Electric Vehicles Act 2018 provides a starting point for the apportionment of liability when accidents arise, but the current legislation is highly restrictive and in many respects, inadequate.

The CDEI report considers the factors that are crucial to delivering public trust in AV usage (including, for example, safety, data privacy and fairness) – the idea being that a well-structured regulatory framework will help to drive growth in the automotive sector, promote effective governance, and above all, encourage innovation in the AV space. The data privacy issue is particularly pertinent when you consider the impetus underlying recent actions such as Lloyd v Google LLC [2021], which sought to challenge the lawfulness of commercial data collection by Big Tech companies (find our previous blog on the Supreme Court decision here).

In the wake of the CDEI report, the Department for Transport hopes to subsequently deliver a roadmap by 2025, which commits to developing a new legislative framework designed to build further trust in AVs and AV usage.

Whilst we don’t yet know exactly what this is likely to look like, one thing is clear: the future may be closer than we thought.

If you found this interesting, there's a lot more comment you may find helpful on UpData, which provides regular updates on contentious, criminal and insurance risks relating to data, cyber-attacks, regulatory enforcement, and all things AI.