Self-driving Cars – What Next?
Self-driving cars are becoming closer to arriving on our roads. Will this eventually mean the end of driving training and the driving test?
Automated Vehicles Act
The Automated Vehicles Act, prepared in 2024, set out to prepare a framework for the safe trialling of these vehicles. It is quite a complex set of rules. One of the most important however, is that currently in the UK, a qualified driver must always be behind the wheel. There must be a button they can press to take control if something goes wrong.
In that respect, ‘driverless cars’ are only semi-autonomous. The responsible passenger must always pay attention to the road in the way any other driver would. At all times they are required to monitor their surroundings and be ready to act.
Safety
There is much controversy about whether the technology is far enough advanced to ensure safety. Particularly in the case of a genuinely driverless vehicle.
Some US cities have operated ‘robotaxis’ for some time already. Waymo and Cruise offer customers a driverless car if one is available. Passengers can refuse this however, and choose a driver instead. China, Singapore, and the UAE also commercially operate driver free cars. And in the UK, Uber claims that they are already prepared to launch as soon as they get the go-ahead.
There are many debatable points surrounding the approach of this new technology. Many people state that they would not feel safe getting into a vehicle which did not have a driver.
Accidents
Also, there is a complex set of issues regarding responsibility. For instance, if a self-driving vehicle malfunctions and causes an accident; who will be liable? The software designer? The physical manufacturer which installed the hardware? The person who owns the car?
Will drivers still need a licence?
So, we may reach a point where it is no longer considered essential for a responsible person to be in the driving seat of self-driving cars. But does that mean that nobody in the vehicle will need to hold a driving licence? And if that’s the case, as driverless cars take over, will we no longer need a driving test?
Jobs
Another contentious point is the subject of jobs. Apparently, the UK is one of the leaders in driverless technology, despite being much more conscious about putting it into practise. But the government says self-driving vehicles have a potential “to build an industry worth £42bn and provide 38,000 jobs by 2035.” In making that statement however, they have failed to factor in how many jobs will be lost. Taxi drivers, delivery drivers, bus drivers… how many professional road users will end up out of work if self-driving vehicles eventually become the norm?