The Department for Transport and Centre for Connected and Autonomous Vehicles (CCAV) consultation on the statement of safety principles closed recently. In this article, Lucie Clinch and Julian Chamberlayne explore the key aspects of Stewarts’ response to the consultation.
The consultation sought views on the draft statement of safety principles (SoSP) for self-driving vehicles in Great Britain. The SoSP has two statutory purposes: it will provide guidance to the Secretary of State when considering whether a self-driving vehicle satisfies the self-driving test for authorisation and will also inform the Secretary of State’s annual assessment of the performance of the self-driving fleet of automated vehicles (AVs), including the extent to which that performance is consistent with the SoSP.
The SoSP does not expressly address cyber resilience, data collection or monitoring, despite issues being crucial to the safe and effective operation of AVs.
The careful and competent driver
The Automated Vehicles Act 2024 requires the SoSP to be framed to ensure that authorised AVs consistently achieve a level of safety equivalent to or higher than that of careful and competent human drivers. This standard is higher than that of an average human driver, who might for example, be affected by fatigue or distractions, for example.
The SoSP focuses on identifying behaviours equivalent to “careful and competent” that can be tested as part of the self-driving test at the authorisation stage. At present, the focus is on pre-deployment. However, the CCAV acknowledge there may be a place for use in assessing collisions or AV behaviour to determine whether the AV meets the appropriate standard of driving, and whether that can inform decision-making on sanctions.
Road safety for all
In the consultation paper, CCAV set out 10 road safety principles and sought views on each principle, as well as feedback on the proposed wording. In webinars ahead of the consultation, CCAV said that it was particularly interested in views on Principles 6 and 7:
Principle 6: safety for all. Self-driving vehicles should improve road safety in Great Britain for all. This includes seeking to minimise risk to its occupants and other road users and avoiding any disproportionate increase in risk to any group of road users. When safety risks occur, the self-driving vehicle should seek to minimise the potential for harm.
Stewarts suggested that self-driving vehicles should be required to take active steps to minimise risk to both their occupants and other road users, rather than seek to minimise the risks. While recognising such an approach may be too ambitious during the initial rollout phase and early development of AVs on our roads, a higher standard can hopefully be achieved in time, which will help AVs gain public confidence and engagement in AVs.
Principle 7: self-driving vehicles should interact safely with all road users, particularly those most at risk. This includes being considerate around pedestrians, cyclists, motorcyclists, children, older adults and disabled people more at risk.
Stewarts responded by pointing out that the requirement for AVs to “be considerate around” vulnerable road users appeared weaker than the intended high standard that AVs were at least equivalent to a careful and competent driver. Instead, we suggested stronger wording while highlighting that vulnerable road users should be expressly recognised as a group within the principles. We also suggested that micromobility vehicles and drivers and riders of those vehicles should be covered, even though they are not yet recognised in the Highway Code.
AVs abroad
Principle 10 recognises that self-driving vehicles should be designed to account for the specific characteristics of the territory in which they operate. While AVs will be tested, and authorised for use in Great Britain, we submitted that it is crucial that AVs are also adaptable to other countries’ road laws and regulations if the full benefits of accessibility are to be realised.
As AVs become more commonplace, it is inevitable that some owners may wish to use them to travel to Europe. Stewarts highlighted that the principles should place greater emphasis on ensuring AVs have sufficient adaptability to operate safely across different environments and jurisdictions.
As automated vehicles become reality in the UK, the safety principles that govern them must be robust, future-proof and centred on protecting everyone, particularly vulnerable road users. Innovation should enhance, not compromise, safety. Stewarts will continue to lobby for stronger safety standards as well as a regulatory framework that delivers safer roads and builds public confidence in this emerging technology.
