28 AFTERMARKET SEPTEMBER 2023 TECHNICAL/AFTERMARKET OF THE FUTURE www.aftermarketonline.net Barrister raises concerns about lack of guidance on hands-free Alex Glassbrook, a barrister at Temple Garden Chambers, says the approval of Ford’s BlueCruise assisted driving system on parts of the UK motorway network is a radical development, which should be accompanied by effective official guidance. “What’s new about a ‘hands off, eyes on’ system is the relinquishing of physical control of steering by the human driver,” he said. “Driver assistance systems have been accumulating for some time, but the legal standard for driving has not really altered since 1971. It was then that Lord Denning, in the case of Nettleship v Weston, set what can be summarised as the standard of the reasonably prudent human driver. “It's a largely objective test, and there are some exceptions, but since established it has never been substantially altered. That’s quite surprising because cruise control is now in such common use that you might have expected the standard of care to have been particularised in relation to it. Now we have a system that explicitly allows the driver to let go of the steering wheel while the car is in motion at motorway speeds. In the coming years, a court might face the question of what standard of attention is required of a driver using a ‘hands off’ system.” Alex’s new book “Advanced, Automated and Electric Vehicle Law” is available for pre-order. MOVE, “The world's most important urban mobility event”, returned to London in June with two action-packed days at the ExCeL centre. As well as moderating the software defined vehicle panel, and seeing a vast array of amazing new tech, it was my pleasure to host the morning session on the Autonomous Vehicles stage. Let’s start with my MOVE2023 pledge. The organisers ask all speakers to make “a concrete pledge towards safer, smarter and more sustainable mobility”, for which we can be held accountable at next year’s event. Mine was two-fold: To encourage people to read David Attenborough’s bestselling book – A Life on Our Planet – which is brilliant and quite scary, and to generally focus more on the environmental impacts of self-driving. Our first speaker was Mark Cracknell, of Zenzic, who focussed on the role of SMEs in the CAM ecosystem. He highlighted the world-leading projects funded via CCAV’s Commercialising Connected and Automated Mobility competition, asserting that no other country will have a greater breadth of self-driving services on the road by 2025. It was standing room only for our next speaker, Dr Joanna White, Roads Development Director at National Highways, who set out plans to futureproof the UK’s road network for AVs. The first panel of the day saw Zeina Nazer, of Cities Forum, discussing new strategies for the safe deployment of ADAS and autonomous tech with Dr Nick Reed, in his role as chief road safety advisor to National Highways, and The Law Commission’s Nicholas Paines QC. Jayesh Jagasia, of the AI in Automotive podcast, then took over hosting, including introducing the aforementioned Embracing the SDV: Welcome to life in the software defined lane panel. Moderated by my good self, it featured: Patrick Blume, Head of Product for Urban Mobility at Mercedes-Benz; John Wall, Senior Vice-President at BlackBerry; and Marcus Welz, Vice President of Smart Mobility at Hyundai Motor Europe. A pertinent fact is that BlackBerry QNX is now embedded in over 235 million vehicles worldwide. We only had 25 minutes, but we crammed a lot in, delving into cybersecurity, common codebase, OTA updates, verification and validation, changing car sales models, in-car personalisation and smart city connectivity. Serious points included Wall outlining the ability to refresh cars already on the road, the huge investments in what Blume described as the race for a competitive advantage, and Welz revealing an initiative to encourage Hyundai staff into multi-modal transport. Now that’s progressive! MOVE 2023: Renewed focus on environmental impacts Neil Kennett looks at cutting-edge auto tech coming to a workshop near you soon AFTERMARKET OF THE FUTURE A commentator on the UK aftermarket since before Concorde was grounded, Neil is Editor of Carsofthefuture.co.uk, providing news and views about driverless vehicles, and Director of Communications at Selfdrivingpr.com, experts in automotive/autonomous media and public relations
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