Osborne to green light driverless-car motorway trials

In 2017, the car in front may well be driverless

The government is to back trials of driverless cars on UK motorways as early as next year, in a bid to make the UK a centre of driverless car research and technology.

Chancellor George Osborne is expected to announce where and when driverless cars will hit the motorway network in his Budget speech this week.

"Driverless cars could represent the most fundamental change to transport since the invention of the internal combustion engine. Naturally, we need to ensure safety and that's what the trials we are introducing will test," said Osborne.

Clearly, Osborne has his eye on securing a slice of the driverless car market, which has been estimated will be worth about £51bn in overall social and economic benefits by 2030, as well as having the potential to provide 320,000 new jobs by the same date.

For some time the government has been championing driverless cars, with trials on public roads given the go-ahead last year. Trials have been happening in Bristol, Greenwich, Milton Keynes and Coventry, with the government also announcing plans to trial driverless lorries on UK roads as well.

Earlier in the year the government committed £20m to research communication between vehicles and infrastructure, after announcing a similar sum for research last year. So it comes as little surprise that the Chancellor is to reinforced the government's commitment to the technology.

The UK is in a good position to advance driverless car technology, particularly given it is the home of Jaguar Land Rover, a company at the forefront of high-tech motoring. The car maker recently revealed it wants to create driverless cars that behave like human-controlled vehicles as part of its research into understanding how people drive cars.

However, before 'autonomous vehicles' can start to fill Britain's roads, the government will need to address several challenges, such as the safety, liability and licensing of driverless cars.

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