Autonomous vehicles

A key area in the development of the law for autonomous vehicles, also known as automated vehicles, driverless cars, or self driving cars, has involved identifying the language that should be used to define such vehicles and establishing a “clear bright line” between vehicles that satisfy the test for self driving or not. The Law Commissions, in their joint report, Automated Vehicles (see further below), described automated vehicles as:

‘…a vehicle that is designed to be capable of “driving itself”: to operate in a mode “in which it is not being controlled and does not need to be monitored by an individual, for at least part of a journey”.’

The Law Commissions identified that these terms should be reserved for vehicles where “the human in the driving seat (if any) may relax and divert their attention, knowing that they are not responsible for anything that happens while the automated driving system (ADS) is engaged”.

They contrasted self-driving cars with technology that is designed to assist human drivers but still requires the human behind the wheel to monitor the vehicle and the driving environment. This approach is endorsed in