Self-driving cars to be allowed on UK motorways, government reveals
Hands-free driving will be allowed in vehicles with lane-keeping technology on motorways with slow traffic
Tetsuya Lijima from Nissan giving a demonstration around the roads of east London of a prototype Nissan Leaf driverless car in 2017 (Image: PA)
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Self-driving cars to be allowed on UK motorways, government reveals
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April 28, 2021, 12:09 am
Self-driving cars enabling drivers to take their eyes off the road and their hands off the wheel could be permitted on UK motorways later this year (Philip Toscano/PA)
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Self-driving cars enabling drivers to take their eyes off the road and their hands off the wheel could be permitted on UK motorways later this year.
The Department for Transport (DfT) announced it will allow hands-free driving in vehicles with lane-keeping technology on motorways with slow traffic, at speeds of up to 37mph.
Self-driving cars to be allowed on UK roads this year
By Cristina Criddle
image copyrightGetty Images
image captionDrivers will be allowed to take their hands off the wheel if ALKS is enabled
Self-driving vehicles could be allowed on UK roads by the end of this year, the government has said.
The Department for Transport said automated lane-keeping systems (ALKS) would be the first type of hands-free driving legalised.
The technology controls the position and speed of a car in a single lane but only up to speeds of 37mph (60km/h)
But insurers have warned the government s definition of ALKS as self-driving is misleading.
Such systems, which were first used in Japan, can help a vehicle to stay in its lane in slow-moving traffic on motorways (freeways), while allowing the driver to take their hands off the steering wheel but safely take over when necessary. They can t, however, be relied on to navigate a car from a London borough to a suburb just outside Birmingham, for example.
British Transport Minister Rachel Maclean hailed the announcement as a major step for the safe use of self-driving vehicles in the U.K., adding that it could make future journeys greener, easier, and more reliable.
The government said the use of ALKS will be limited to speeds of up to 37 miles per hour on British motorways, meaning it will only really be used in heavy traffic. It did not immediately respond when CNBC asked if it is planning to trial the technology or allow members of the public to use ALKS in their own cars.
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