Seite - (000173) - in Autonomes Fahren - Technische, rechtliche und gesellschaftliche Aspekte

1618.4 National and international legislative and political developments motive industry is mainly represented by its association. Individual companies do not appear very active on this issue at the EU-level. Autonomous driving is still in the realm of research rather than implementation and there exists no delineable vision for a future where autonomous vehicles play a major role. The cases addressed in this book do not play a role at the European level. In addition, there is a lack of integration of the topic into existing visions on transport and mobility. The needs for regulation and further research and development are being discussed in working groups both at the European and the German national levels, although autonomous driving is not high on the political agenda in either case. While the European Commission’s administration is (co-) funding some of these initiatives, it has not taken a lead on the regulatory front; rather it is mostly active in supporting research and development. This is similar to the case in Germany. The issue of autonomous driving is on the radar screen of the German transport ministry and major associations but is only now slowly beginning to gain somewhat more attention. As is discussed further below, one relatively important new development is the reform of the United Nations Convention on Traffic Safety of 1968 that has been pushed by European automakers concerned about losing ground to international competitors. Next on their agenda is likely to be enabling legislation at the national level for testing purposes. 8.4 National and international legislative and political developments There are some differences in national discourses and support strategies for autonomous vehicles in major automobile producing markets and in the European Union. Below we consider developments in the United States, Japan, the European Union, the United Kingdom, Sweden and Germany. A common characteristic of these countries and the EU is that they lack national regulations for autonomous vehicles. It has been with state-level regulations in the United States and special permits in the case of European countries that test driving of self-driving cars has begun on the public roads [33]. 8.4.1 Regulatory Changes to the United Nations Convention on Road Traffic (Vienna Convention) Reacting to developments in the United States, at the European level debates about the need for modifying the United Nations Convention on Road Traffic (the Vienna Convention) which had been on-going for about a decade, intensified. Article 8, paragraph 5, of the 1968 convention states: “Every driver shall at all times be able to control his vehicle or to guide his animals” [7]. Before Google pushed the debate forward, there was considerable disagreement among experts as to how much of an obstacle the Vienna Convention was. Google’s release of its Self-Driving Car tipped the scale in the direction of regulatory change. As reported by Euractiv in the summer of 2013: “The EU is currently slightly