Self-driving cars steering towards 2026
Transport Secretary Mark Harper has said driverless cars could be on UK roads as soon as 2026.
The UK government announced new legislation last month to accelerate the introduction of autonomous cars to public roads in a bid to make the country a world-leader in the technology.
He said: “The legislation is going through parliament at the moment, so hopefully we’ll get that through parliament by the end of 2024. Probably by as early as 2026 people will start seeing some elements of these cars that have full self-driving capabilities being rolled out.”
He continued: “It has a huge number of potential uses, the obvious one is 88% or so of road traffic collisions we see today are caused by driver error of some description.
“There is a real potential for this sort of technology to actually improve safety on the roads, not just for drivers, not just for passengers, but for other vulnerable road users – pedestrians, cyclists – to really improve road safety, which is a real win for everybody.”
