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Quite practical: autonomous driving in Austria
Attorney Dominik Leiter gives useful legal tips for practice in the automotive industry. This time he explains the current legal situation regarding autonomous driving.
Quite practical: autonomous driving in Austria
Legal situation in Austria. Again and again you hear reports about innovations in the field of self-driving cars and see videos of their use on the roads - mostly on the other side of the Atlantic. Now, however, the German federal government is pushing ahead. In February, it passed the draft law developed by the Federal Ministry of Transport and Digital Infrastructure, which is intended to represent “a central next building block” “to bring autonomous driving into practice”. The law is expected to be passed in the Bundestag by mid-2021 and will make Germany the first country in the world to allow driverless vehicles in regular operation.
Parking aid and highway assistant
So far, so good for our neighbors, but what is the local legal situation? Here it is particularly important to take a look at the “Automated Driving Regulation”, which, on the one hand, defines the framework conditions for testing the new technologies and, on the other hand, also determines which systems may be used in regular operation. The parking aid and the “highway assistant with automatic lane keeping” are therefore permitted. The parking aid frees the driver from the obligation to be in the driver's seat and have at least one hand on the wheel. However, he must still be in close proximity to the vehicle and monitor the parking process. The highway assistant with lane keeping is basically a combination of lane keeping assistant and adaptive cruise control. Since both hands can be taken off the steering wheel - in contrast to the programming of many car manufacturers without a time limit - we are getting a little closer to autonomous driving from the well-known videos. However, these systems may only be used on motorways or expressways and not in construction sites. In addition, the driver must take back the wheel at any time as soon as a “critical situation” arises and must change lanes themselves.
It remains to be seen whether those responsible in Austria will be inspired by the German project and will soon develop framework conditions for autonomous driving. The legal, technical and ethical questions surrounding this topic will remain with us for some time to come.