The Law Commissions' Joint Report: Automated Vehicles

• Published date: 02 February 2022
• Subject Matter: Insurance, Transport, Rail, Road & Cycling, Insurance Laws and Products
• Law Firm: BLM
• Author: Ms Kerris Dale and Alistair Kinley

Law Commissions recommend further legislation to enable the safe use of automated vehicles

On 26 January, the Law Commission of England & Wales and the Scottish Law Commission published the final report in their joint, three-year investigation into law reform and automated driving.

They set out the case for a new Automated Vehicles Act and detail the areas it should cover. We have grouped their principal recommendations for regulating the safe deployment of self-driving or automated vehicles (AV) on British roads into the following themes.

Ensuring clarity about automated driving and assisted driving

The final report recommends:

"a high test for a vehicle to be authorised as having self-driving features: it must be safe even if a human user is not monitoring the driving environment, the vehicle or the way it drives. A user may be required to respond to a clear and timely signal to take over driving (a "transition demand"), but otherwise must not be relied on to respond to events or circumstances."

This approach would treat what was previously categorised at "conditionally automated" driving (Level 3 according to the Society of Automotive Engineers' international standard) as assisted driving, even if the technology offers a very high degree of assistance, it is not "automated driving" and the individual remains a "driver".

Conversely, the person in the driving seat of a highly automated vehicle (Levels 4 or 5) will be known as a "user-in-charge" and is not a "driver" while the vehicle is driving itself. A user-in-charge is not responsible for the dynamic driving task but must nonetheless be qualified and fit to drive because they will be required to take over following a transition demand from the automated vehicle.

A "user-in-charge" would become responsible for driving at the end of the transition period whether or not they have taken control. If the user-in-charge fails to take over the driving task, the recommendation is that the vehicle must complete a risk mitigation manoeuvre and come to a controlled stop in lane with hazard lights flashing.

Establishing new schemes for regulating vehicle safety

The final report recommends that section 1 of the Automated & Electric Vehicles Act 2018 (AEVA), concerning the listing of vehicles which the Secretary of State for Transport has classified as being automated, should be replaced with a new authorisation scheme with several elements.

• Type approval: An agency - currently the Vehicle Certification Agency (VCA) - would grant vehicle type approval allowing the vehicle manufacturer (VM) to produce and sell models that conform to the approved specification.
• Authorising self-driving: A new authorisation authority, likely to be the...