Automated vehicles: statement of safety principles

We are calling for views on what safety standards should be sought for automated (self-driving) vehicles in the UK.  

Section 2 of the Automated Vehicles Act 2024 requires the Secretary of State for Transport to prepare a Statement of Safety Principles that apply to automated vehicles.  

This statement will be used in different ways across the safety framework, including: 

• when authorisation authorities carry out vehicle type approval and authorisation checks (pre-deployment) 
• when regulators carry out in-use monitoring and regulatory compliance checks (post-deployment) 
• for annual assessments on the overall performance of automated vehicles 

We want to understand how: 

• the safety principles may be used 
• the safety standard may be described 
• safety performance could be measured 

Some questions ask about the development of the safety principles themselves, while others ask how the safety principles may be used in practice.