Draft law enables autonomous driving in Germany

Germany’s federal government has approved a draft law allowing for autonomous cars to be driven on German streets, says Germany Trade & Invest, the federal economic development agency. Crucially within the law, responsibility for mishaps continued to rest firmly in the hands of the driver, but allows for the driver to hand control the vehicle to its own control system in certain situations and for certain periods of time. The draft law also stipulates that the driver must be able to instantly override or de
February 1, 2017 Read time: 2 mins
Germany’s federal government has approved a draft law allowing for autonomous cars to be driven on German streets, says 5444 Germany Trade & Invest, the federal economic development agency. Crucially within the law, responsibility for mishaps continued to rest firmly in the hands of the driver, but allows for the driver to hand control the vehicle to its own control system in certain situations and for certain periods of time. The draft law also stipulates that the driver must be able to instantly override or deactivate the system at any time.

In addition, the law would require autonomously driving cars to carry a form of ‘black box’, which would record all driving data and be decisive in disputes over liability should the autonomous driving technology fail.

Germany is already preparing to make autonomous driving a reality. Sections of public highway have been approved as live testing zones, while the country has been active in R&D. The institute for the German Economy believes Germany has registered 58 per cent of all global patents in autonomous driving since 2010.
Location Based Systems

Related Content

  • June 5, 2014
    The twisting path to enforcement’s future
    Survey reveals some division of views about enforcement’s future as Colin Sowman discovers. Technological advances and legislative changes pose many questions for those involved in road enforcement, ranging from the changing demands of privacy and data protection legislation to the practicalities on multi-speed enforcement. So to get the industry’s views ITS International took soundings on some of these bigger questions. In a world where many vehicles are fitted with GPS linked ‘black box’ telematics system
    Read More
  • February 1, 2012
    Legalities of in-vehicle systems and cooperative infrastructures
    Paul Laurenza of Dykema Gossett PLLC discusses the paths which lawmakers may go down on the route to making in-vehicle systems and cooperative infrastructures a reality. The question of whether or not to mandate in-vehicle systems for safety and other applications is a vexed one. There is a presumption on some parts that going down the road of forcing systems' fitment is somehow too domineering or restricting. Others would argue that it is the only realistic way of ensuring that systems achieve widespread d
    Read More
  • January 30, 2012
    In-vehicle systems as enforcement enablers?
    From an enforcement perspective at least, Toyota's recent recalls over problems with accelerator pedal assemblies had a positive outcome in that for the first time a major motor manufacturer outside of the US acknowledged publicly what many have known or suspected for quite a while: that the capability exists within certain car companies to extract data from a vehicle onboard unit which can be used to help ascertain, if not prove outright, just what was happening in the vital seconds up to an accident or cr
    Read More
  • October 22, 2018
    Grey areas: who's legally responsible for C/AVs?
    Connected and autonomous vehicles are an exciting development in the ITS sector – but amid the hype some big questions about their deployment remain unanswered, finds Ben Spencer Connected and autonomous vehicles (C/AVs) have the potential to change the way we travel - and to eliminate road fatalities. But policy makers and regulators will need to ensure user and public safety is included in future planning. The legal and insurance industries will have to catch up, too. For example, questions over who is
    Read More

Highlighted Content