Legal support for the implementation and use of unmanned vehicles: experience, problems and directions for their solution

Abstract

The article presents the results of a study of current problems of legal support for the admission and safe use of unmanned vehicles both in experimental and general operation modes, obtained during the implementation of a scientific project supported by the Russian Science Foundation, and voiced as part of a plenary report at the V International Scientific and Practical Conference “Problems of development and prospects of Business Law in modern economic conditions” (“Laptev Readings-2023”) (April 27, 2023, IGP of the RAS). The purpose of preparing the article was to bring to the attention of the scientific community the results of understanding a new problem for Russian Transport Law associated with an essential change in paradigmatic approaches to building a system for ensuring transport safety and organizing traffic on roads, as well as some proposals formulated by the authors for improving the system of legal regulation in this area. Legalization of proposals in Russian law, according to the authors, will minimize the risks of operating highly automated vehicles on public roads, which is essential for the development of domestic entrepreneurship and solving the problems of ensuring the sovereignty of the Russian Federation. In accordance with the goal set by the authors, a number of specific research problems have been solved. In particular, based on the application of methods of historical and legal analysis, the conclusion is substantiated that the emergence of innovative modes of transport is perceived, as a rule, with a significant delay, as a result of which the lack of a legal basis traditionally acts as a limiting factor for its implementation, and the legalization of norms regulating relations with his participation is unsystematic. The use of comparative legal analysis tools allowed us to conclude that the previously mentioned trend is characteristic of all developed countries without exception. However, in the China, the USA and the EU, understanding of the urgent need to resolve, using both public and private law, issues related to the transition to a general mode of operation of highly automated vehicles that do not require a driver, occurred earlier than in the Russian Federation, where legal regulation is still experimental in nature. A formal and dogmatic analysis of the current Russian legislation and draft normative legal acts gave the authors grounds to conclude that the legal regulation of the relations under study is unsystematic and not based on the results of the achievements of legal science. The foregoing allowed us to draw a reasonable conclusion about the need to take urgent measures to eliminate the identified gaps in the legislation, since further preservation of the current state of affairs may entail an irreparable lag of the Russian Federation from highly developed countries in the field of implementation and safe use of highly automated vehicles.