UK self-driving car “revolution” incoming: new law allows autonomous vehicles by 2026

UK streets could be populated with self-driving cars by as soon as 2026 in what is being described as a “watershed moment for UK automotive innovation and road safety”.

This is all thanks to a new bill that became law today. Named the Automated Vehicles Act, it will enable the introduction of fully-autonomous vehicles to UK roads within the next couple of years, provided they “achieve a level of safety at least as high as careful and competent human drivers”.

Yet, while these self-driving vehicles will still need a person to give inputs on occasion, the new law states that drivers will not be held responsible for how their vehicle acts when it is operating in its autonomous settings. Instead, the government says the legal culpability will be placed firmly on the manufacturer, as well as the insurance company that covers the car, with the driver not deemed a ‘driver’ per se, but a ‘user-in-charge’.

Reacting to the act reaching Royal Assent, Transport Secretary Mark Harper said: “Britain stands at the threshold of an automotive revolution, and this new law is a milestone moment for our self-driving industry which has the potential to change the way we travel forever.”

He continued, “while this doesn’t take away people’s ability to choose to drive themselves, our landmark legislation means self-driving vehicles can be rolled out on British roads as soon as 2026”.

The reaction across the industry, for the moment, appears to be generally optimistic, too. Mike Hawes, the boss of the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders said that it’s “a watershed moment for UK automotive innovation and road safety in the UK.

“Self-driving vehicles will revolutionise our society, and this new law will help turn ambition into reality, putting the UK alongside a handful of other global markets that already have their regulatory frameworks in place.”

That said, the jury is still out as to whether the public would be open to the roads being filled with self-driving cars. In fact, the RAC has found that 58 per cent of people it surveyed were frightened by the idea of fully-autonomous vehicles, with only 15 per cent saying they thought self-driving cars would make our streets safer.

“There are also some very practical hurdles to overcome,” explained the RAC’s head of policy, Simon Williams, “such as how the cars of tomorrow will be able to successfully and safely navigate the UK’s complex web of streets – especially with so many potholes and faded road markings.”

One of the key elements of the new law, will be a crackdown on manufacturers misrepresenting their cars as ‘full self-driving’. This has already become an issue for some – namely Tesla – with the American giant recently caught up in a number of messy court cases in the U.S, which found that there was “reasonable evidence” that Elon Musk and other company executives knew that some elements of Tesla’s semi-autonomous system was defective.

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