Driverless Cars 'On UK Roads By January'

By Tom Cheshire, Technology Correspondent

The government is today announcing plans to put driverless cars on public roads as early as January 2015.

The British Army already uses autonomous vehicles, supplied by automotive design specialist MIRA, which is also developing systems for civilian use.

Researchers in Oxford have also developed an autonomous car that can be controlled using an iPad.

Tim Edwards, principal engineer at MIRA, told Sky News the UK had some "very advanced technologies and some fairly unique know-how".

Google is already testing driverless cars on roads in California

But he said: "Where we lag behind is actually getting the technology into some real field trials."

Trials on public roads have already been held in Japan, Singapore and Germany, and Sweden will soon follow suit.

In California, driverless cars are already road legal. Google's self-driving cars have already logged 700,000 miles.

In May, the web giant unveiled a new model - without pedals.

Nick Connor, Managing Director of Volvo UK, said: "We warmly welcome this initiative from the government and will be looking into the detail with keen interest.

Volvo is also testing them in Sweden

"Support of national and local government is crucial if we are to demonstrate the real, life-changing potential of this technology and encourage adoption from the public."

But the main obstacles may not be technological, but legal.

Suzie Mills, a lawyer at Ashfords, told Sky News: "That's going to be one of the areas that consumers want to know about - what does their insurance cover? Is it going to affect premiums?

"That's going to come down to clarifying exactly where responsibility sits. And that is something the government's going to need to look at and definitely insurance companies are going to want to know about."

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