Legislation Needed: What is Missing to Make Level 3 Autonomous Driving Legal?

Authors

AUTONOMOUS DRIVING PANEL:
M. Siemann, AUDI AG, Ingolstadt

Year

2020

Print Info

Fortschritt-Berichte VDI, Reihe 12, Nr. 813

Summary

Automated and autonomous driving has the potential to substantially improve human mobility by making it both more sustainable and safer at the same time. But challenges of various sorts must still be overcome in order to realize this potential.
While the development of solutions to the engineering challenges is well under way, it is important not to lose sight of another crucial component.
Legal obstacles to the use of automated and autonomous driving systems must also be addressed. Without appropriate modification of the legal framework, on-road use of these systems is prohibited as a rule.
The lack of a single harmonized legal framework for automated driving presents a particular challenge. Every country is in principle sovereign in this area and hence free to set its own rules. It is accordingly realistic to expect a "patchwork" of differing legal requirements to emerge, even if a harmonized legal framework will in the future apply in particular within the European Union (EU) at least as regards the technical requirements.
Coordination and compatibility between the technical requirements and the legal requirements is, however, more important for the introduction of these systems than the technical requirements themselves. Without such coordination, it will hardly be possible to offer vehicles equipped with these systems since disparate technical and legal requirements are likely to be mutually contradictory, which would all but preclude system implementation.