Autonomous Cars: July 2017

The issue continues to develop and the Government is very supportive for a host of reasons including more efficient driving, lower emissions, and fewer accidents. It sees the UK as a global centre of excellence for both research and manufacture.

Thatcham and the ABI have established a working group to deal with the issues of driverless cars including liability. This is called the Autonomous Driving Insurance Group and we have met with the ABI to discuss the Group's progress.

This issue is gaining momentum - on 27 February 2017, the Government published the Vehicle Technology and Aviation Bill 2016-17, and has outlined the topics that will be included. However, this particular Bill was dropped on 20 April 2017; it was not far enough along its Parliamentary journey to be able to be completed before the dissolution of Parliament prior to the General Election on 8 June. It has since been confirmed, on 21 June, in the Queen’s Speech that this policy issue will return, and that the legislation to take this forward will be called the “Automated and Electric Vehicles Bill”. We expect the main clauses to remain as drafted per the previous Bill. These were:

• Clause 1 – Requires the Secretary of State to define which vehicles are ‘automated’ and require the new form of insurance
  
  
• Clause 2 – This creates a ‘first instance’ liability on an insurer to settle a claim involving a car in automated mode
  
  
• Clause 3 – clarifies contributory negligence position
  
  
• Clause 4 – Excludes ‘unauthorised alterations’
  
  
• Clause 5 – Right of insurer to claim against the responsible party  

Keoghs is heavily involved in the industry and Government’s work to enable driverless technology and provide guidance to clients on the issue. For example:

• We ensured that a draft response to the DfT consultation released in July 2016 was available to clients a month before the submission deadline;
  
  
• We ensured that our draft response for the HoL inquiry/call for evidence was available to clients before the submission deadline of 26 October; and
  
  
• We will remain closely aligned with the ABI, both through Samantha Ramen’s regular catch ups with the relevant ABI policy lead and through our seat on the relevant ABI/Thatcham working group (the ADIG subgroup, attended by Howard Dean).