Automated and Electric Vehicles Bill

Lord Craig of Radley Excerpts

2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 20th February 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Craig of Radley (CB)]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Borwick, with his incisive critique of many aspects of the Bill. I understand that the Government are keen to be seen to be helpful and supportive of this new technology. The content and thrust of the Bill before the House today amply demonstrate that enthusiasm. It smacks of a “just do it” approach to this topic. I have no wish to be a spoil-sport but I am astonished that almost nothing is said, let alone covered, about safety: that is, road safety.

Not one element of the Bill has any realism unless the listed driverless vehicles are known to be safe for use on motorways, on all other major or minor roads up and down the country, on streets and avenues and in other urban settings wherever they may be cleared and allowed to roam. The safety not only of the occupants of the driverless car but of all other road users must be fully considered and regulated.

There must be negligible probability that they will behave like bumper cars, banging into each other or other vehicles or road users, or striking and damaging property. However, the Bill’s total coverage of this critical issue is limited to,

“in the Secretary of State’s opinion”—

in Clause 1(1)(b)—and a number of references to “safety-critical software”. It may be that the Secretary of State’s opinion will be that a particular type of vehicle can be used driverlessly only on motorways or dual-carriage highways, or he may have other ways of bracketing or classifying different makes or models of driverless vehicles and where, or where not, they may go.

While manufacturers’ undertakings will be an important guide, they surely cannot be the last word. One has but to recall the problems over diesel exhaust emissions to know how to answer that question. How is the Secretary of State to be satisfied that some enthusiastic DIY driverless car maker’s pet construction passes muster for safety—the safety, that is, not only of the occupants of the driverless car but of all other road users? It and all driverless-capable vehicles must be well described and regulated in ways that address the fundamental point of “safe to use”. Surely some MOT coverage of the automatics and its software will be necessary, too, as the vehicle ages.

Whatever methods the Secretary of State might use to arrive at their opinion, there must be some clear, publicly transparent criteria that underpin the opinion and manufacturers’ claims. In her letter of 8 February the Minister stated that the,

“approval process, which ensures that all”,

automated,

“vehicles on our roads are safe, is still in its infancy”.

She also mentioned discussions with the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe on this topic. But surely we must have our own national standards set out if we wish to be in the vanguard of using this new technology.

The repeated use of the phrase “safety-critical software” worries me, too. It is presumably meant to sound reassuring—until we ask how “safety-critical” is defined and who decides. Does it not imply that the vehicle was unsafe before the software update? There are also the so-called ethical and moral issues touched on in debates in the other place. I shall not dwell on them, but of course they will need resolution.

Without in any way trying to detract from the purpose of the Bill, I invite the noble Baroness to give some indication or explanation as to how the Government view and will deal with the road safety and ethical aspects of these vehicles and give insurers confidence in the safety performance of the new vehicles that they will be asked to insure. On a perhaps slightly lighter note, I hope that a more user-friendly word or expression than the phrases “driverless vehicle” or the even more legalistic and laborious “automated vehicle when driving itself” might be adopted. Once these vehicles become more than a pipe dream, the public will surely have coined a word. Look how the word “mobile” has been coined for such telephones. Might the now archaic word “autocar”, unhyphenated, first in use in the 1880s, and “autovan”, et cetera, be adopted? Perhaps the Minister might consider this use, with a definition in the Bill that resurrects this 19th-century word—or suggest another more user-friendly descriptor should the magazine Autocar decide to claim prior rights to the word.

While I might have no difficulty sitting back and reading the paper or answering my mobile as my automated vehicle—my autocar—takes me safely along a motorway or major dual carriageway, I doubt that I could feel safe on the many narrow and winding roads I frequently use when at home in Norfolk. Often, when another car approaches and the road is too narrow for both to pass, one courteously backs to a spot where the verge has been sufficiently flattened to allow enough space for the other to squeeze by. Will driverless cars display such courtesy or be able to decide which should reverse? How about roadworks that require vehicles to queue and pass in turn? Will the autocar approaching a stationary queue of cars ahead, waiting for the controlling traffic lights to go from red to green, too far ahead to be visible from the back of the queue, be able to distinguish that back of the queue from a couple or more vehicles parked by the side of the road, or will it erroneously decide to overtake?

Getting such autocar decisions wrong would have obvious safety risks. Even if such roadworks are hazard-signed and preregistered on GPS, there are also so-called mobile roadworks, with traffic control being maintained by two individuals with stop and go boards. Could an automatic vehicle cope with that as well, or would such roadworks have to be banned? These are but a couple of examples of my actual road traffic experiences in the past couple of weeks. Until such issues are resolved, the hype about the benefits that autocars will bring to those unable to drive themselves seems wildly premature.

To conclude, will the noble Baroness explain the Government’s thinking on their approach to safety in the regulation, approval and use of autocars? I am of course confident that her department will have been giving safety much thought—so, if the noble Baroness prefers, I am happy for her to write to me. With that, I have no other points to raise.