King's Speech 2023 - Automated Vehicles Bill

Automated Vehicles Bill

“My Ministers will introduce new legal frameworks to support the safe commercial development of emerging industries, such as self-driving vehicles...”

• The Automated Vehicles Bill will unlock a transport revolution by enabling the safe deployment of self-driving vehicles. It will cement the UK’s position as a global leader in this high tech and high growth industry and deliver one of the world’s most comprehensive legal frameworks for self-driving vehicles, with safety at its core.

• It will release the huge growth potential of this sector, which will allow us to create a UK market of up to £42 billion and create 38,000 skilled jobs by 2035, helping meet  the  Prime  Minister’s  priority  to  grow  the  economy.
• Self-driving vehicles will make transport safer, more convenient and more accessible, improving the lives of millions of people. With 88 per cent of accidents currently involving human error, the potential for automated vehicles to reduce costs, injuries, and fatalities is enormous. They will empower people across the country to get around more easily, including to school or work which will boost productivity.

What does the Bill do?

• The UK is building a strong global reputation in self-driving technologies, and international investors in this area are increasingly looking to invest in British companies. 70 per cent of global auto sector companies that source for self-driving technologies are sourcing from the UK market. Between 2018 and 2022, the UK self-driving vehicle sector has generated £475 million of direct investment and 1,500 new jobs.

• We can either lead the way or follow the leaders. This legislation would be one of the world’s most comprehensive legal frameworks for self-driving vehicles, based on the international thought-leadership of the Law Commissions’ review. The Bill will provide the certainty and confidence that the private sector needs to unlock research, innovation, and investment across the whole of the UK.

• We need to update our laws to ensure the potential benefits of self-driving technologies can become a reality. The Automated Vehicles Bill puts safety and the protection of the user at the heart of our new regime and makes sure that only the driver – be it the vehicle or person – is accountable, clarifying and updating the law. It implements the recommendations of the 4-year, world-leading review of self- driving vehicle legislation carried out by the Law Commission of England and Wales and the Scottish Law Commission.

The Automated Vehicles Bill will:

• Set a rigorous safety framework for self-driving vehicles, with safety at its core:
• • Set the threshold for self-driving vehicles in law. Only vehicles that can drive themselves safely and can follow all road traffic rules without the need for a human to monitor or control the vehicle to maintain that level of safety will be classified as self-driving and allowed on our roads. The Department for Transport and its agencies will be given new powers to authorise these vehicles and ensure in-use compliance with the safety standards that we will set.
  • Hold companies firmly accountable once vehicles are on roads. Companies will have to meet safety requirements from the point a vehicle is introduced onto our roads or face new sanctions and penalties if they fail in their duty. These include fines, requirements to take corrective action, and suspension of operation. Criminal offences will apply in serious cases.
  • Investigate and learn from incidents. The Bill sets out new processes to investigate incidents involving self-driving vehicles to ensure that lessons are fed back into the safety framework.
  • Digitalise Traffic Regulation Orders (TROs). Local authorities will be required to send the legal orders they make (for example, to set speed limits, close roads and designate parking bays) to a central publication platform. This data will be used to create a digital map of the road network to support the safe operation of self-driving vehicles. This will also help make parking easier for all drivers, providing better information like the location and availability of parking spaces, as outlined in the Plan for Drivers.

• Ensure clear legal liability:
• • Create new organisations responsible for self-driving. While the vehicle is driving itself, a company rather than an individual will be responsible for the way it drives. The Bill sets out the responsibilities of companies that develop and operate self-driving vehicles on roads in Great Britain. Once authorised, companies will have ongoing obligations to keep their vehicles safe and ensure that they continue to drive in accordance with British laws. They will be required to report certain safety related data to the authorisation authority and the in-use regulator and to comply with other relevant laws, including data protection and environmental protection legislation.
  • Protect users from being unfairly held accountable. The Bill gives people immunity from prosecution when a self-driving vehicle is driving itself, given it does not make sense to then hold the person sat behind the wheel responsible. Non-driving responsibilities however will still remain with that person, such as maintaining appropriate insurance for the vehicle and ensuring proper loading, as well as responsibility during any part of the journey where the person is driving.

Protect the Consumer:

• Clamp down on misleading marketing. The Bill prohibits misleading marketing: only vehicles that meet the safety threshold can be marketed as self-driving. For all other vehicles, the driver is responsible at all times. Anyone using a self-driving vehicle must be clear about their legal responsibilities.

Territorial extent and application

• The majority of the measures in the Bill will extend and apply to Great Britain. England and Wales. The exception to this is the Digitalising Traffic Regulations Order measure which applies only to England.

Key facts

• In 2015 and 2016, the Government announced £200 million to support the development of self-driving technologies, funding more than 80 projects and 200 organisations developing self-driving vehicle technologies, products, services and testing capabilities.

• In September 2022, the Government announced the £66 million Commercialising Connected and Automated Mobility fund, supporting a further 20 projects in nearly

50 organisations, to develop prototype passenger and logistics services and support the development of the UK self-driving vehicle supply chain, to enable safe and secure rollout in the UK.

• Self-driving vehicles have the potential to improve road safety by reducing human error:
• • tragically, there were 1,695 road casualties in 2022, and in 2021 88 per cent of all recorded collisions on roads in Great Britain involved human error as a contributory factor;
  • Institute for Engineering and Technology research suggests that for every 10,000 errors made by drivers, a self-driving vehicle will make just one;
  • safety gains from self-driving vehicles will not be a linear process, and there may well be incidents involving self-driving vehicles in the future. However, this legislative framework will allow and ensure that these incidents are appropriately investigated, responded to and learnt from.

• A strong UK self-driving sector could bring significant economic impacts.
• • the market in the UK is estimated to be worth £41.7 billion in 2035, capturing

6.4 per cent of the £650 billion global market;

• • jobs in the self-driving sector will reach 87,000 by 2035. 49,000 of these will substitute jobs in the motor vehicle manufacturing sector and 38,000 will be net additional.
• The application of self-driving technologies will create efficiencies in other domestic sectors:
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