Abstract
Behaviour on the road is ordered by a range of norms, rules, laws, and infrastructures. The introduction of self-driving vehicles onto the road opens a debate about the rules that should govern their actions and how these should be integrated with, or lead to the modification of, existing road rules. In this paper, we analyse the current rules of the road, with a particular focus on the UK's Highway Code, in order to inform future rulemaking. We consider the full range of laws, norms, infrastructures, and technologies that govern interactions on the road and where these came from. The rules have a long history and they contribute to a social order that privileges some modes of mobility over others, reinforcing a culture of automobility that shapes lives, livelihoods and places. The introduction of self-driving vehicles, and the digital code on which they depend, could reorder the culture and concrete of our roads, by flattening the multidimensional rules of the road, hardening rules that are currently soft and standardising across diverse contexts. Future rule changes to accommodate self-driving vehicles may enable increases in safety and accessibility, but the trade-offs demand democratic debate.
Highlights
Do the rules of the road need to change to accommodate the introduction of autonomous vehicles (“AVs”), and who should decide upon any such changes? This paper combines a literature review with an analysis of the history and politics of road rules to ask what is at stake in changing the rules of the road
Our analysis was prompted by conversations during some of our research interviews1, in which we discussed the challenges faced in formulating rules for a road network to be shared by human drivers and AVs
One computer scientist working for a self-driving car company expressed the question as, “How can you formalise in a crisp way, in a way that you can code to an autonomous car, all the unwritten rules of the road?” He was convinced that his company could, in his words, “solve the safety problem” caused by erratic human drivers, but in order to do so, they would first have to
Summary
A DIGITAL HIGHWAY CODE?Do the rules of the road need to change to accommodate the introduction of autonomous vehicles (“AVs”), and who should decide upon any such changes? This paper combines a literature review with an analysis of the history and politics of road rules to ask what is at stake in changing the rules of the road. Culture, and Concrete: Self-Driving Vehicles and the Rules of the Road. Behaviour on the road is ordered by a range of norms, rules, laws, and infrastructures.
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