While the insurance industry is raising red flags over safety concerns, the government is determined to push ahead with autonomous driving technology – it will all come down to public perception
By Editor Katie Scott
The potential premature use of automated lane keeping system (ALKS) technology has definitely generated a nervousness within the insurance sector, especially bearing in mind the government’s recent announcement that ALKS could be legally defined as self-driving following a call for evidence last year.
ALKS, as defined by the Department for Transport and the Centre for Connected and Autonomous Vehicles, “is vehicle technology designed to control the lateral, left and right, longitudinal, forward and back movement of the vehicle for an extended period without further driver command.
“During such times, the system is in primary control of the vehicle and performs the driving task instead of the driver at low speeds on motorways”.
The government has ambitions for ALKS to be used on British roads later this year, however the insurance industry is desperate to apply the brakes to this accelerated timetable.
I interviewed Williams as part of Insurance Times’s Insurance2025 conference last month - he told me that AXA, Thatcham Research and the ABI had established a list of 12 conditions that define a safe, automated vehicle. ALKS technology only achieved two of these conditions, indicating “there’s a long way to go”.
“Automated lane keeping systems are driver assistance, it’s as simple as that,” Williams insisted. “They can’t change lanes, they can’t perform a minimum risk manoeuvre.”
The main focus for the insurance sector following the government’s announcement on 28 April has been frantic signposting around safety concerns and how these are inexplicably linked to customers’ perceptions.
For example, if ALKS is successfully classified as self-driving, then road users will assume the technology is fully autonomous and that they don’t need to be engaged in the driving experience at all. However, Thatcham Research et al’s list of conditions prove this to be untrue at this point in the technology’s development.
This clash in understanding around how ALKS should be used could, therefore, lead to more road traffic accidents rather than less.
Williams continued: “The problem is if they’re misrepresented as being self-driving, if they are sold as enabling you to disengage, then we’re going to see some serious road accidents. And that’s our big concern.”
Not only could this be fundamentally dangerous for drivers, but it could also cause an increase in claims frequency and severity – an unpleasant aftershock for motor insurers following the quieter pandemic period.
For me, the use of automated vehicles or semi-autonomous technology will be an intricate balancing act.
Many insurance businesses are fully supportive of ALKS and believe that any technology which works to enhance driver safety can only be a good thing – in part due to the potential reduction in claims and associated costs.
However, the stumbling block here is pushing such technology onto the general public before all parties are 100% happy and prior to insurance firms getting a clear grip on the possible risks.
Launching ALKS as autonomous before it adheres to more than two of Thatcham’s conditions could backfire spectacularly – if it results in increased RTAs where drivers have misunderstood their involvement with the tech, then drivers will mistrust the technology, as well as similar tools, leading to a reduced appetite for vehicle automation, undermining the government’s push for the UK to lead in the field of autonomous vehicles.
Williams told me: “We cannot afford somebody to rush something out, describe it as more capable technology than it really is, then [we] see an accident and then it derails the whole programme. If the public doesn’t like it, we won’t get it.”
This becomes an even more potent threat considering the public are already not keen on “mad robot cars”, Williams added.
“If you ask people about driverless cars now, generally you still don’t get big support for them. The general public are very nervous about robot cars,” he continued.
It is imperative that a public awareness campaign or marketing drive is started ASAP around the use of ALKS if the government wishes to see it used successfully on our roads in 2021. Yes, this may be time consuming and may have extra costs associated with it, but I feel it can only add benefits.
If nothing else, it will ease the insurance sector’s collective mind about driver understanding and will hopefully lead to more informed decision making, both from drivers choosing to use and operate ALKS as an assistance tool and from insurers who are providing cover for this emerging risk.
It could also help differentiate specialist brokers that deal in the motor arena, if they can offer guidance and communication on this topic to their clients.
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