UK insurance chief says babies born today may never need to learn to drive

June 6, 2017 Read time: 1 min

Axa UK’s chief executive, Amanda Blanc, has predicted that "babies born today may never have to take a driving test".

Self-driving technology is moving so fast that autonomous cars could be on the roads within 15 years, she told the Daily Telegraph, and it is important that the insurance industry is prepared for their arrival, when vehicles could be controlled by a computer. She commented that the insurance industry has a key role to play in building a driverless future and the insurance risks involved, adding that "driverless cars will not be able to take to the roads [without that]”.

Blanc warned that the insurance sector will have to adapt, although insurance rates may fall in line with lower accident rates. She noted that a car in auto-pilot is expected to make roads "much safer and increase mobility for vulnerable members of society," with those unable to get car insurance now likely to be able to in future.

Axa is involved in several Government-backed projects which aim to produce a blueprint for the legal implications of driverless cars, while 4236 Direct Line is developing a trial into self-driving technology with FiveAI, a Cambridge-based artificial intelligence firm.

Location Based Systems

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • Multiple vehicle crashes could soon be a thing of the past, say experts
    September 25, 2013
    Experts at Thatcham Research - the UK motor insurers’ automotive research facility, believe that multiple vehicle accidents could be mitigated or avoided altogether with the widespread use of new automatic braking technologies. Thatcham has been researching and testing autonomous emergency braking (AEB) systems on behalf of insurers for the last three years and has already undertaken an in-depth study of crashes and their causation factors.
    Read More
  • Need for performance standards for road user charging systems
    February 2, 2012
    GNSS-based road use metering systems need performance metrics, as well as ways to test and reliably compare them. Bern Grush and Joaquín Cosmen write about the function of the GNSS Metering Association for Road-use charging (GMAR), recently set up to address this issue
    Read More
  • Tolling faces up to unprecedented challenge
    October 9, 2020
    The next five years are likely to see a number of changes – but the tolling industry will be equal to them, thinks the IBTTA’s Bill Cramer. The best minds in the business are on the case…
    Read More
  • Mounting benefits of dynamic tolling project
    January 30, 2012
    Wisconsin's four-year HOT lanes pilot project, launched in May 2008, cost US$18.8 million to construct. Halfway into the project, which uses variably priced, or dynamic, tolling to improve highway efficiency, the benefits are mounting. The problem was obvious, and frustrating, to anyone who ever sat in bumper-to-bumper traffic on State Route 167 and watched a lone car whiz by every 20 seconds or so in the carpool lane. But for planners at the Washington State Department of Transportation, the conundrum was
    Read More

Highlighted Content