Threads / Self-driving vehicles regulation / Automated vehicles: statement of safety principles
Closed Consultation Published 10 Jun 2025 Centre for Connected and Autonomous Vehicles Department for Transport ↗ View on GOV.UK

Automated vehicles: statement of safety principles

Seeks views on what safety standards should be sought for automated (self-driving) vehicles in the UK.

Opened 10 Jun 2025
Closed 1 Sep 2025
▤ Verbatim text from source document

We are calling for views on what safety standards should be sought for automated (self-driving) vehicles in the UK.  

Section 2 of the Automated Vehicles Act 2024 requires the Secretary of State for Transport to prepare a Statement of Safety Principles that apply to automated vehicles.  

This statement will be used in different ways across the safety framework, including: 

  • when authorisation authorities carry out vehicle type approval and authorisation checks (pre-deployment) 
  • when regulators carry out in-use monitoring and regulatory compliance checks (post-deployment) 
  • for annual assessments on the overall performance of automated vehicles 

We want to understand how: 

  • the safety principles may be used 
  • the safety standard may be described 
  • safety performance could be measured 

Some questions ask about the development of the safety principles themselves, while others ask how the safety principles may be used in practice.

View this consultation in Welsh