UK government consults on safety principles for automated vehicles

Following an earlier call for evidence, the UK government is consulting on its proposed statement of safety principles for automated vehicles. The statement is required under section 2 of the Automated Vehicles Act 2024.

The legal context

The Act establishes the regulatory framework for self-driving vehicle technology in Great Britain. Among other things, it introduces a comprehensive safety framework that creates a whole-life, in-use assurance system for automated vehicles, consisting of:

type approval which evaluates whether the vehicle meets all technical safety, environmental and other performance standards;
an authorisation process that aims to make sure that the vehicle can drive safely and legally on our roads without a driver; and
ongoing regulation with powers to monitor safety data and enforce compliance, as well as an independent investigation function.

What is the statement of safety principles?

At the heart of this framework is the statement of safety principles (SoSP), which will set the safety standard that automated vehicles are expected to meet. Under the Act, the SoSP has two statutory purposes:

under section 1 the Secretary of State for Transport must have particular regard to the SoSP when considering at authorisation whether vehicles can travel safely and autonomously;
under section 38 the Secretary of State must also assess the annual performance of the self-driving fleet, including the extent to which that performance is consistent with the SoSP.

The primary purpose of the SoSP is to guide the Secretary of State when applying the self-driving test at the authorisation stage. Section 1 of the Act provides that a vehicle satisfies the self-driving test if it is designed or adapted so that a feature of the vehicle is intended to allow it to travel autonomously, and if it is capable of doing so safely and legally.

The principles have therefore been drafted to focus on the vehicle and its features in the context of that test. Under the Act, the safety principles must be framed with a view to making sure that:

authorised self-driving vehicles will achieve a level of safety equivalent to, or higher than, that of careful and competent human drivers; and
road safety in Great Britain will be better as a result of using authorised self-driving vehicles on roads than it would otherwise be.

The consultation

The government is consulting on ten proposed principles. Under those principles, self-driving vehicles should:

use the road in accordance with traffic laws and the Highway Code;
always maintain control over the vehicle;
predict, detect and respond to hazards proactively;
adapt driving to road and weather conditions;
behave in a predictable manner;
improve road safety in Great Britain for all;
interact safely with all road users, particularly vulnerable road users;
interact safely with emergency services;
only operate autonomously within the limits under which they are specifically designed to function; and
be designed to take account of the specificities of the territory where they will operate.

The earlier call for evidence identified three areas that the government considered did not need to be expressed as standalone principles within the SoSP: the ability to drive without human monitoring of the vehicle or road environment, or without human control; cyber resilience; and explainability.

The statement of safety principles will help shape the threshold that automated vehicles must meet before they can be authorised for use on Great Britain's roads, and will also inform how the performance of the self-driving fleet is assessed over time. For manufacturers, developers, insurers and other market participants, the consultation offers an early indication of the regulatory expectations that are likely to govern the safe deployment of this technology.

When to respond

The consultation ends on 9 September 2026. The commercial tech team at Lewis Silkin are experts in all things related to automated vehicles (including the Act, having guided clients through their own deployments of automated vehicles) and would be happy to discuss any related queries readers might have. Do please get in touch.