Driverless cars and legal responsibility

Drivers should not be legally responsible for road safety when travelling in the autonomous cars of the future, according to the law commissions for England and Wales, and Scotland.

According to the report published today, drivers should be defined in law as as a 'user-in-charge'. In the event of a crash, the car maker or provider of the software would be held responsible. The news prompted politics and transport journalist, Peter Walker, to say "This is deeply alarming, and shows the many, many ethical and legal problems that autonomous cars will bring. They're not needed; they're not the answer; they won't work."

The report on a possible regulatory framework for automated vehicles recommends:

• a 'user-in-charge' cannot be prosecuted for offences arising directly from the driving task, such as dangerous driving, speeding or running a red light, but remains responsible for other tasks, including insurance and checking people are wearing seatbelts
• some vehicles may be allowed to drive themselves with no-one in the driving seat and a licensed operator responsible for overseeing the journey
• data to understand fault and liability following a collision must be accessible
• sanctions for carmakers who fail to reveal how their systems work

The government has responded by saying it will 'fully consider' the recommendations.

Driverless cars - too good to be true?

If you think all the claims surrounding driverless cars sound too good to be true, you're not alone. Christian Wolmar is an award-winning writer and broadcaster specialising in transport: "People say we've got 1.25m people killed on the world's roads every year across the world - we will remove that danger - remove it with this technology. I'm not sure these driverless cars will ever be developed in the way that they envisage. There's no guarantee that they actually will be safer. They will still have software that is programmed by human beings. The cars will still be on the roads in potential collisions."

Christian Wolmar appears in our crowdfunded documentary Stop Killing our Children, which can be viewed in full on Vimeo

https://vimeo.com/389461872

There are good reasons to be sceptical about the claims made by evangelists for a high-tech car future. Car companies will have you believe they are here to help – by designing for us products that are seemingly environmentally benign and even 'uncrashable'. These empty promises are a distraction.

Talk of driverless cars is less about transforming the status quo than maintaining it, fudging any path to progress. We need fewer cars, not fewer drivers.

The ethical choice

The ETA was established in 1990 as an ethical provider of green, reliable travel services. Over 30 years on, we continue to offer cycle insurance, breakdown cover and mobility scooter insurance while putting concern for the environment at the heart of all we do.

The Good Shopping Guide judges us to be the UK's most ethical provider.

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