" ... automation level 4, where a driver does not need to intervene when the vehicle is driving itself. The driver is removed from the chain of responsibility "

In which case they're not really a driver , but a passenger. The big problem I see is when a fully autonomous car one day inevitably runs over and kills someone. The responsible party will then be a corporation not a person, with the financial muscle to cover their corporate ass and the law's inability to identify and punish a culprit other than with fines. That takes us back to the Norse principle of weirgeld, which didn't work well enough to counter the vengeance principle that wrecked the culture (see for example Grettir's saga).

Responsibility will be with the owner of the car, not the maker - or at least it's how it should be.

If the maker is driving, then the maker is responsible for it's actions.

Maker is not driving though.

They are if there is no requirement for a supervising driver.

This isn't about current tech, it's about future tech.

Maker is not driving though.

The clue is in the word self driving.

There is no driver, at least not in a traditional sense.

The self driving aspect is done by a combination of software and hardware. The article makes clear that a "driver" (traditionally a human) has no liability when the vehicle is in self driving mode, because in this situation they are not actually driving the car.

To all intents and purposes the manufacturer is driving the car because 100% of the car's actions are down to whatever they have built.

From the article:

> the act does have a few tricks up its sleeve, notably making it clear that liability for a vehicle will not lie with the driver when it is in self-driving mode.

Emphasis mine. Not entirely clear, but it sounds like the maker does get responsibility.

Insurance companies already have deep pockets.

But here there will absolutely be a pretty good record of any incident - and that means that all the vehicles on the road can learn from the same mistake, which is far better than the nut behind most wheels.

"Insurance companies already have deep pockets."

..... often combined with short arms....

The what, pray tell, is the point ?

Presumably said driver has to be alert to step in at a seconds notice ? (so subject to driving hours regulations ?)

I'm starting to believe the UK government hasn't really got a clue and are hoping no one notices.

What's the point of a car if it needs a person with a red flag?

Maybe this isn't the end of the process, but the start.

"I'm starting to believe the UK government hasn't really got a clue and are hoping no one notices."

And this is news to you?? The UK government hasn't had a clue about anything - other than self preservation, and that only weakly - in the whole of my 50+ years, and I see no reason to assume that they were any better before that.

I take your point, but this driverless malarkey is a relatively new thing, and it makes sense to have it supervised in the early stages. It will only get better with time, though whether it will get good enough remains to be seen.

The Govt loves AI because it's great ... and the self-driving marketing droid did say "AI" at some point ...

Real intelligence beats artificial intelligence as we've had millions of years to evolve to where we are now.

Anyone else notice that people always assume that AI is more intelligent than the average person, but it could equally be lower than the lowest intelligence person on the planet.

It is after all, just one very complicated stack of if statements and we can safely assume that it won't cope with all the edge cases that it will encounter on our road network.

"we can safely assume that it won't cope with all the edge cases that it will encounter on our road network."

We can also safely assume that of most people, evidenced by the tens of thousands of KSIs every year.

The article clearly says that the driver being required to take over is the CURRENT situation with the TESTING that's going on.

In 2 years time, it said they expect to remove that restriction.

Anyway, the government knows exactly what they are doing... It will be chaos, but it will happen on Labours watch.

Just like how Khan gets blamed for Tory ULEZ

Well, that will for sure reduce the NHS waiting lists when more people will die on the roads.

Why will more people die? At the moment the UK has amongst the safest roads in the world and we still see 1,700 people killed, and I'll assert the overwhelming majority of those are down to either recklessness, carelessness, or incompetence on the part of a road user.

Isn't the UK the place that recently allowed cyclists to be two or three abreast on the road (and not single file)? Mix that with "here's a self driving car" and...

...okay, I know this pitiful excuse of a government has little in the way of green credentials, but to think of ways to actively kill cyclists, it's a bit beyond the pale...

cyclists being two abreast if there is two of them means an overtake needs LESS road than if they were in single file and is safer than forcing them into the gutter - it's always been 'allowed' and now it advised. Roads are not just for cars..

How do you decide which one of you goes on the outside though?!

The reality is that the UK still abides by the World Forum UNECE Automotive Regulation per Working Group 29 GRVA, which as of now requires every self-driving action to be driver initiated.

While they are aiming to refine the wording by June, the whole Automated Vehicles Bill is just additional restriction upon self-drive systems conforming to the above.

The real delay is the 6 month timeframe for transport secretary to appoint the approvals body and for it to then begin its work of assessing candidate systems, once submitted. These systems need to be fully autonomous capable. To date, none are.

Sounds promising. Lets see how it goes

“Companies will have ongoing obligations to keep their vehicles safe and ensure that they continue to drive in accordance with British laws”

Pity many actual drivers don’t seem to!

"Hey, Boss, that randomly-occurring bug the dev team warned you about? Turns out it's not so random -- and Legal says there's an incoming lawsuit and separate government action incoming about it."

"No problem. We'll just 'go out of business', sell all our assets cheaply to another corporation we'll set up, and continue as before, under a new name."

"Pity many actual drivers don’t seem to!"

Next trick would be getting automated bicycles ready for the road. Even with occasional AI screw ups they would probably be safer

that I will be able to get tanked up on a Friday evening and take the car home ?

I'd observe that the chosen date lies conveniently on the other side of a general election, and that this announcement should therefore be treated with as much credibility as an announcement that everybody is to given a free unicorn that shits gold in 2026 too.

It looks like it could sit on the other side of a general election if it came into law in August this year.... just waiting for confirmation of that on the evening news today....

A tesla driving into a train on a level crossing: https://futurism.com/the-byte/footage-self-driving-tesla-train

Here's a human driver showing the Teslas how it should be done:

[1]https://youtu.be/KFiXReaYEj8

[1] https://youtu.be/KFiXReaYEj8

First thing it needs is a decent pothole detection system (though there are roads near me that are more pothole than road, no route through some sections without hitting at least 1 pothole - got to book in for 2nd replacement tyre this year & it's only May FFS)

Good luck with any self driving system coping with country roads, they will probably need a whole module for horses and the interpretation of gestures by the riders, and as for communication for who is reversing into a passing place on single track roads that is typically done by hand or head gestures & lights flashing between people, I'm certainly looking forward to that solution!

But hey, they can barrel up & down an old straight ex rail tunnel, hurrah!