Driverless cars will be hitting the roads in the UK from January next year, but what does this mean for motorists?
Back in July, it was revealed that the government is to allow driverless cars to take to UK roads from January 2015, sparking an outcry from protesters who believed more research needs to be done before the technology is deemed road-worthy.
Approval for testing in Britain has been delayed significantly, with the Department for Transport originally pledging to let self-driving cars be trialled on public roads by the end of last year – a promise that obviously went unfulfilled.
The UK has been rather slow in its approval for driverless cars, as the US states of Nevada and Florida have all endorsed the technology. In fact, Google’s robot car has already done more than 300,000 miles on the open road in California. In 2013, Nissan carried out the first public road test for its autonomous vehicle.
So once these robo-cars hit the roads next year, what will this mean for motorists?
The law could change
Although California originally approved Google’s autonomous car, it has now made a partial u-turn on its decision. The state has demanded that manual controls and a steering wheel be fitted to all driverless cars, so that drivers can take “immediate physical control” of the car if required.
From September 16th, autonomous cars without manual controls will not legally be allowed on California’s roads. In addition, such vehicles will only be permitted on open roads if someone is sat in the driver’s seat. This means if an accident does occur, the driver will be able to take control of the car almost immediately.
Courtney Hohne, a spokesperson for Google, told the Wall Street Journal: “With these additions, our safety drivers can test the self-driving features, while having the ability to take control of the vehicle if necessary.”
Speed limit
Last week, it emerged that Google’s driverless cars had been programmed with the ability to go ten miles per hour over the speed limit.
Dmitri Dolgov, the project's lead software engineer, told Reuters that the motivation behind the company’s decision to allow the car to defy speed limits was to avoid the vehicle becoming an obstruction. He said if the car couldn’t keep up with traffic then it would turn into an obstacle on the road.
It is also not clear who would be liable to pay any speeding fines: the owner, the passenger or Google for writing the software. But this is one of many legislative issues that would need to be addressed before the cars hit the roads.
Road safety
When a person starts learning to drive, they should become versed in road safety and as such, should be able to make snap decisions while driving. But, in the case of autonomous cars, who makes these decisions?
In reference to this, Mr Dolgov, said: “Should a car try to protect its occupants at the expense of hitting pedestrians? And will we accept it when machines make mistakes, even if they make far fewer mistakes than humans? We can significantly reduce risk, but I don't think we can drive it to zero.”
There have been reports that suggest the Highway Code could be re-written to accommodate driverless cars, but only time will tell.
Posted by Fred Mason