Automated Vehicles Act 2024

Legal background

1. The following is a summary of the legal background to the Act. Further explanation is contained in the policy background sections of these notes.
2. The Act provides a legal framework for regulating the use of automated vehicles on roads and other public places. The Act largely reflects the recommendations of the review of the law relating to automated vehicles undertaken by the Law Commission of England and Wales and the Scottish Law Commission (the Law Commissions).
3. The Act creates licensed and regulated entities that will assume liability for the way that an automated vehicle drives. Drivers have immunity from criminal liability arising from how the vehicle is driven while the automated vehicle features are engaged. Civil liability to other road users is met by insurers’ liabilities under the Automated and Electric Vehicles Act 2018 together with power in the Act to make redress orders. The Act creates a number of criminal and civil penalties. Most of these offences apply to the regulated entities and actors created under the Act.
4. The following notes give a brief overview of significant legislation referenced by the Act.
5. The Road Traffic Act 1988 is an Act that regulates road traffic, including road traffic offences, on public roads and other public places in England, Scotland and Wales. The offences in the Act are amended under Chapter 2 of this Act and new offences created (section 53 and 54). Amendments are also made to the roadside testing powers (section 92) and new definitions inserted into the Act (section 94). Further amendments to the Act that relate to insurance provisions can be found in Schedule 2 of this Act.
6. The Road Traffic Offenders Act 1988 is an Act that contains provisions concerning the prosecution and punishment of road traffic offences including the penalties attached to the offences. This is amended under Chapter 2 of this Act, to set out the penalties for the new offences introduced into the Road Traffic Act 1988.
7. The Automated and Electric Vehicles Act 2018 is an Act that contains provisions which define an automated vehicle for the purposes of the Act and the liability of insurers in respect to those vehicles. At Schedule 2 this Act amends the Automated and Electric Vehicles Act to ensure it aligns with the framework set out in this Act for automated vehicles and removes the requirement for the Secretary of State to keep a list of automated vehicles but maintains the liability of insurers in respect to authorised automated vehicles.
8. The Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984 is an Act that provides powers to regulate traffic on public roads, including making traffic regulation orders and setting speed limits. Part 6 of this Act at section 93 provides the power for the Secretary of State or Welsh Ministers to make regulations requiring a traffic regulation authority for an area in England or Wales respectively to provide information about relevant traffic regulation measures made using powers under the Act, to enable information to be communicated or acted upon by authorised automated vehicles or in respect to the electronic equipment of other vehicles on roads.
9. The assimilated type approval legislation (listed in the Act at section 91(4), provides the legal powers for checking that vehicles, their systems and their components comply with applicable safety and environmental standards and is a well-established process for conventional vehicles. section 91 provides a power to amend the assimilated type approval legislation for the purpose of setting suitable technical requirements for the type of vehicles described under section 91(1).
10. Section 95 clarifies that any provision in the Act that relates to obtaining or using information must comply with the Data Protection Act 2018.
11. Part 5 of the Act introduces a new framework for issuing permits for automated passenger services section 83 disapplies taxi, private hire and bus legislation for automated passenger services. The relevant legislation is listed under this section.
12. Schedule 2 to the Act contains other amendments to provisions of other Acts, in most cases to insert ‘authorised’ into references to automated vehicles in these Acts or to update the existing relevant references in the act to include ‘authorised automated vehicles’.
13. Schedule 5 to the Act amends the Consumer Rights Act 2015 to include reference to powers inserted by this Act relating to misleading marketing offences under Part 4 of this Act.