Driverless Vehicles: A Bumpy Road Ahead?

"Automated vehicle technology will profoundly change the way we travel, making road transport safer, smoother, and smarter. We are on the pathway to driverless cars, where fully automated vehicles will transport people and goods to their destination without any need for a driver".1

Such confident words came from the Government during the consultation on automated vehicles. But do they live up to the reality and what happens if something goes wrong? As the Vehicle Technology and Aviation Bill continues to progress through Parliament, we examine the potential enforcement implications of driverless cars on our roads.

Hard reality or science fiction?

Driver error accounts for over 90% of road traffic deaths. Autonomous vehicles clearly have the potential to reduce this tragic statistic. However, is the possibility of completely autonomous vehicles a reality or does it remain within the realms of science fiction?

The full details as to how driverless vehicles will be operated have yet to be confirmed. The Government aims to have self-driving vehicles on our roads by 2020 and has given the go ahead for testing on motorways and A-roads. Lorries may be the first autonomous vehicles subject to the trial on UK motorways and would be tested as "platoons" so that they move in a group. The "road train" will be controlled by a driver in the front vehicle, although the other cabs will also have drivers as a precaution.

Most recently, a consortium of British companies has unveiled a plan to test driverless cars on UK roads and motorways in 2019. The cars will communicate with each other about any hazards and should operate with almost full autonomy.

However, importantly the Department for Transport has confirmed that such tests will be restricted to vehicles with a human driver present, should the need to take control arise

Who is the driver?

Under road traffic legislation, namely the Road Traffic Act 1988, the key issue when determining issues of criminal liability is who the driver is, i.e. "who was in control of the vehicle"?

This deceptively simple question is made infinitely more complicated in the case of driverless vehicles, which raise a myriad of tough legal issues, including:

Will road traffic legislation be amended to incorporate corporate offences? Unless the legislation is revisited to clarify the question of "driver" control, then under current legislation the physical human driver will remain responsible. As yet, there is no indication from...