The growing prospect of driverless cars being allowed on UK roads has raised a number of questions over safety and law, and how other drivers interact with them.
New consultation on driverless vehicles announced last week gives fleets the opportunity to raise practical safety concerns surrounding the new technology, says FleetCheck, and some of the points are applicable to private drivers and traders.
Barrie Wilson, commercial fleet consultant at the fleet software specialist, said bus, coach, taxi and other passenger-carrying operators who were the focus of the government exercise had a range of risk management questions they believed needed investigation.
“The consultation is a valuable chance to drive down into the detail of how driverless vehicles will be used in alignment with well-established risk management principles, something that our user base has been discussing.
“For example, who will be responsible for inspecting a vehicle for roadworthiness before it is used? In most fleets, this task falls to the driver but, if there is no driver, then the job needs to be allocated to someone else.
“In the event of a collision or other incident, how do other drivers interact with the driverless vehicle in terms of such basic tasks as exchanging details and how the vehicle is recovered?
“Also, what implications does this have for driver hours, especially where a remote driver is employed as a safety net to the driverless technology? Does the existing legislation apply to that human, and how would tachograph or board recording take place for a coach or bus?”
Barrie said the consultation was due to be followed by trials next year and more widespread adoption of driverless technology for passenger-carrying fleets in 2027.
“As long as manufacturers can produce vehicles that are capable – as the Autonomous Vehicles Act indicates – of matching a careful human, we’ll soon be properly entering an era when driverless vehicles may become commonplace.
“The practicalities of driverless adoption that are tackled through the government’s process with passenger-carrying fleets over the next couple of years are quite likely to become established norms for all kinds of operators with all kinds of vehicles in the future.
“The consultation, which runs until late September, provides an opportunity for fleets to raise issues that are central to everyday safety and we’d urge anyone with similar questions to those we have described here to make their voices heard.”
