Faculty's concerns over automated vehicles consultation

Concerns have been raised by the Faculty of Advocates about the effectiveness of a Department of Transport consultation on automated lane keeping systems (ALKS) in motor vehicles.

The technology is designed to control the movement of a vehicle for an extended period on motorways without further driver command, allowing the driver to perform other activities. It would generate a "transition demand" if control required to be transferred back to the driver.

Faculty's concerns, stated in its response to the consultation, stem from the nature of the document, which takes the form of a series of questions to which the possible answers are “yes”, “no” or “don't know”, with scope to explain an answer. "This tends to close off examination of the assumptions which underlie the options," the response points out, "and may generate questions which cannot be answered 'yes', 'no' or 'don't know' – the equivalent in a courtroom setting would be 'have you stopped beating your wife?'"

A particular instance, and one that Faculty highlights in its detailed answers, is that the parameters of an ALKS set out in the proposed UN Regulation require the system to monitor and respond to dangers which present themselves ahead and laterally, but not from behind. It comments that the premise that these parameters will generate a transition demand in all of the likely circumstances in which a need to transfer control back to the driver could occur, does not take account of the risk of a collision from behind.

"We can easily posit a situation in which the driver of the car behind is dangerously riding on the bumper of the car in front of him. If the vehicle in front were being driven manually, one would expect the driver to be monitoring his rear-view mirror and be alive to the danger caused by an aggressive tailgater”, Faculty states.

"However, were the front vehicle to be driving in ALKS mode and the driver permitted to undertake other activities, then he may not detect the danger and the ALKS (lacking a requirement for rear sensors) would not detect the danger and issue a transition demand."

The advocates also consider that the consultation places undue emphasis on the status of the Highway Code as rules, "or, at least, a tendency to look at the Code in isolation rather than taking a holistic view of the complex regulatory landscape".

In addition, Faculty believes the consultation does not give full consideration to data protection issues and how information stored in a vehicle’s ALKS could be accessed for non-criminal investigations, such as civil litigation and fatal accident inquiries. It calls for a full data protection impact assessment.

Click here to view the full response.