Trust key to autonomous vehicles adoption
Thatcham Research has warned that consumer trust will be critical to the adoption of autonomous vehicles.
It has welcomed the UK Government’s latest progress on the Automated Vehicles Act 2024, including the publication of responses to the Statement of Safety Principles (SoSP) consultation, but said the government needs to do more to build confidence in the technology and clarity around liability.
Research carried out with the Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR) found that 67% of drivers believe the biggest potential benefit of self-driving technology is reducing accidents by removing human error, but 58% say they will wait for the technology to prove itself.
Tom Leggett, vehicle technology manager at Thatcham Research, said: “The question of who pays when an automated vehicle crashes has been asked for years. Right now, the answer is simple – everyone does. That’s how the current insurance model works, with risk shared across all drivers.
“As we move towards automation, that model will evolve. But for insurers to price risk fairly and keep cover affordable, they need clarity.”
Safety principles
Leggett continued: “The government’s work on safety principles is a critical step, because it begins to define what ‘safe’ looks like in practice. But those principles must translate into clear, measurable standards that everyone can understand. Today, there is no universally agreed definition of a ‘careful and competent driver’. Safety performance can vary significantly depending on how and where it is measured, making like-for-like comparison difficult.
“That challenge is compounded by the data itself, and importantly, who owns it. If safety claims are not independently verifiable, it becomes harder to build confidence in the technology.
“If safety is the promise of automated vehicles, transparency is what will build trust. That means consistent ways to compare performance, and the data to back it up. ‘Trust me’ is not assurance for anyone.”
Liability
Thatcham Research has been closely involved in industry discussions contributing to the development of the Statement of Safety Principles (SoSP), particularly in relation to insurance and liability, and the outcome of this latest call for evidence will be the primary reference for determining if automated vehicles are safe for UK roads.
Leggett continued: “Safety should not be seen as a one-off approval process, but an aspect of AV adoption which requires ongoing assessment in addition to the open sharing of incident data and real-world safety evaluation.
“Government have also reassuringly referenced how the SoSP can support insurance frameworks and how they rely on clear definitions of acceptable risk levels of these vehicles. This process will also be dependent on reliable access to AV data, including that generated by collisions.”
