Law Commission publishes report on autonomous vehicles

Date: Friday 28 January 2022

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Work began on the report in 2018 when the Centre for Connected and Autonomous Vehicles (CCAV) asked the Law Commission of England and Wales and the Scottish Law Commission to undertake a far-reaching review to enable the safe and responsible introduction of automated vehicles on GB roads and public places.

By automated vehicles they refer to vehicles that are capable of driving themselves without being controlled or monitored by an individual for at least part of a journey.

The project has involved three rounds of consultation. Between November 2018 and December 2020, the Law Commission published three consultation papers and received a total of 404 written responses. They also held more than 350 meetings with interested parties.

On 26 January 2022 a joint report with the Scottish Law Commission was published containing recommendations for legal reform.

Throughout this project, safety was kept at the forefront of the proposals, while also retaining the flexibility required to accommodate future development.

The recommendations cover initial approval and authorisation of self-driving vehicles, ongoing monitoring of their performance while they are on the road, misleading marketing, and both criminal and civil liability. They include:

• Writing the test for self-driving into law, with a bright line distinguishing it from driver support features, a transparent process for setting a safety standard, and new offences to prevent misleading marketing.
• A two-stage approval and authorisation process building on current international and domestic technical vehicle approval schemes and adding a new second stage to authorise vehicles for use as self-driving on GB roads.
• A new in-use safety assurance scheme to provide regulatory oversight of automated vehicles throughout their lifetimes to ensure they continue to be safe and comply with road rules.
• New legal roles for users, manufacturers and service operators, with removal of criminal responsibility for the person in the passenger seat.
• Holding manufacturers and service operators criminally responsible for misrepresentation or non-disclosure of safety-relevant information.

In November 2018 the first three-month consultation on safety assurance and legal liability was launched. An analysis of responses and interim findings was published in June 2019.

In October 2020, the second consultation focused on highly automated road passenger services (HARPS), looking at how automated vehicles could be used to improve public transport. An analysis of responses and interim findings was published in May 2020.

The third consultation was launched in December 2020 and drew on responses to both previous papers to formulate overarching proposals on the way forward. The closing date for responses was 18 March 2021. After analysing responses, all the responses received were published alongside a summary of responses and a draft Impact Assessment in July 2021. The full analysis of responses was published alongside the report, on 26 January 2022.

To view all the previous consultation papers, analysis documents and the full text of all responses received CLICK HERE.

The automated vehicles joint report has been laid before Parliament and the Scottish Parliament. The UK, Scottish and Welsh Governments will decide whether to accept the recommendations and introduce legislation to bring them into effect.

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