Germany, eager to be a pioneer in the auto sector, is working on new laws to allow these vehicles to travel on autobahns. But it will follow behind the US and the UK where Tampa (in Florida) and Greenwich (near London) will be among the first locations to be regularly ferrying passengers around in these vehicles - probably by mid-summer. 

Three consortia in UK

Insurers and lawyers are among the consortia working on these projects - including insurers AXA and RSA in the UK, for instance, as well as Wragge Lawrence Graham. Wragge is part of a consortium - with Ford, Jaguar Land Rover, Tata and others - that is planning to put three self-driving vehicles on the footpaths of Milton Keynes next year.

Shifting legal position?

The fact that human error is now involved in some 90% of motor collisions will create waves of change for the whole of the industry - perhaps involving the emergence of ‘a complex and rapidly shifting legal position’, according to Stuart Young, head of the auto group at Wragge .

Huge reduction in collisions

How will the personal injury sector be affected? Responding to Google’s plans for its prototype driverless car, Eric Turkewitz of New York personal injury firm Turkewitz has blogged: ‘The issue of lawsuits regarding the cars will, I think, be vastly overwhelmed by a huge reduction in collisions that result from the most common forms of human error’. And he concludes that ‘the need for my services as a personal injury attorney will be reduced’. 

Legal expenses cover

But the developments will take a while for the legal implications to be worked out - perhaps as long as the decade or so before driverless cars are expected to be widely seen on our highways. ‘On legal expenses insurance, I wouldn’t touch it for a while,’ says Steve Manton, formerly chief executive of RSA’s legal expenses subsidiary in the UK. ‘For driverless cars in a driverless environment it would be fine - but, while you are mixing it up, I can see it being a nightmare.’ Speaking of the same situation - where both driverless and traditional cars are on the highways together - Stuart Young of Wragge has written: ‘The mixed use world is probably the most difficult to legislate for.’

Vienna Convention on Road Traffic

All sorts of legal areas will need to change. The Vienna Convention on Road Traffic, on which most countries base their laws governing transport vehicles, is being changed to update its requirement that ‘every moving vehicle…shall have a driver’. There are also concerns about cyber security - particularly, the shock or terrorist scenario of hackers taking over the controls. The vehicles will create ‘a lot of data’, according to Wragge - making data protection a ‘live issue’ for ‘manufacturers, distributors, operators and owners of connected vehicles’.

The whole approach to the law on accidents might need to change if courts struggle to decide who is responsible for collisions in driverless cars. Stuart Young says: ‘If that becomes too difficult then the UK may need to adopt a new way of dealing with society's collective risk in the transport infrastructure, for example with strict liability and a revised approach to insurance.’

Pods for army personnel

The launches of the first vehicles will be joyous events - whether they are taking visitors around the Science Museum in Tampa, shuttling concert-goers to Greenwich’s O2 Arena or taking soldiers around in pod cars on the Fort Bragg army hospital base in North Carolina. Many law firms will become involved in various different ways as different legal issues emerge. For instance, UK-based, international firm Osborne Clarke is coming at the issue more from a digital expertise and smart cities angle.

Data privacy

Wragge, however, is the only law firm involved in one of the three consortia developing the first four pilots in the UK - in Bristol and Coventry as well as Milton Keynes and Greenwich. It will be at the heart of the development of new laws for a new transport era. Stuart Young says: ‘While this consortium is addressing the technical issue of whether we can put driverless cars on the public roads, it is also considering how we should do that to ensure society's broader concerns are addressed. Wragge Lawrence Graham & Co will be reviewing the legal and ethical roadmap, as it were, with a view to issuing White Papers on subjects including data privacy and the development of the law to allow driverless cars.’