The upper house of Germany’s parliament has approved a law which will allow automakers to test self-driving prototypes on the country’s streets.
The law will require each vehicle to be fitted with a black box that records every journey. Additionally, Reuters reports that the legislation will permit drivers to take their hands off the wheel and eyes off the road when the vehicle’s autonomous system is in control.
The fitment of the black box will be necessary to determine blame in the event of an incident. The law stipulates that if the human driver is in control at the time of a crash, they will be personally responsible. However, if the self-driving system is in charge and a system failure causes an incident, the carmaker will bear responsibility.
German marques including Volkswagen, Daimler, BMW and Audi are all developing autonomous driving systems and are doing much of their testing in California (except Audi). Following the passing of this legislation, it is likely that they will soon begin testing on German roads.
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