Automated Vehicles Act 2024

Chapter 6 Other regulatory powers and duties

38 General monitoring duty

(1) The Secretary of State must put in place arrangements that the Secretary of State considers effective and proportionate for monitoring and assessing the general performance of authorised automated vehicles on roads and other public places in Great Britain.

(2) Those arrangements must, in particular, include monitoring and assessing the extent to which that performance is consistent with the statement of safety principles.

(3) The Secretary of State must, as soon as practicable after the end of each reporting period, publish a report setting out the Secretary of State’s conclusions from the monitoring and assessment undertaken in accordance with this section.

(4) For the purposes of this section, each of the following periods is a “reporting period”—

(a) the period of 12 months beginning with the month in which the first grant of an automated vehicle authorisation takes effect, and

(b) each subsequent period of 12 months.

39 Duty with respect to incidents with potential regulatory consequences

(1) The Secretary of State must put in place arrangements that the Secretary of State considers effective and proportionate for—

(a) identifying the occurrence of relevant incidents,

(b) enquiring into the causes of those incidents (including by means of the investigative powers), and

(c) deciding whether any of the enforcement powers should be exercised in response.

(2) In this section—

• “relevant incidents” means incidents that—

  (a)

  occur on a road or other public place,

  (b)

  involve an authorised automated vehicle, and

  (c)

  reveal grounds for enquiring into whether any of the enforcement powers has become exercisable as a result of the incident;

• “the investigative powers” means the powers in sections 16 to 23 and Chapter 4;

• “the enforcement powers” means the powers in section 8(2) and (3) and Chapter 5.

(3) The investigative powers do not limit what the Secretary of State may do for the purposes of the arrangements put in place under subsection (1) without relying on powers of coercion.

40 Power to require reports from police and local authorities

(1) The Secretary of State may, by regulations, require an authority within subsection (3) to report to the Secretary of State incidents which—

(a) occur in the area of the authority, and

(b) are of a description set out in the regulations.

(2) Such regulations may limit the requirement to cases in which the Secretary of State requests a report.

(3) The authorities within this subsection are—

(a) a chief officer of police;

(b) a strategic highways company;

(c) the Scottish Ministers (in their capacity as roads authority or traffic authority);

(d) the Welsh Ministers (in their capacity as highways authority or traffic authority);

(e) a combined authority (established under section 103 of the Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Act 2009) that exercises functions in relation to highways or road traffic;

(f) a county council or county borough council;

(g) a district council for an area for which there is no county council;

(h) a council constituted under section 2 of the Local Government etc. (Scotland) Act 1994;

(i) Transport for London;

(j) a London borough council;

(k) the Common Council of the City of London (in its capacity as a local authority);

(l) the Council of the Isles of Scilly.

(4) Regulations under this section must be framed with the intention that only relevant incidents, or incidents that may be found to be relevant incidents, will be reported.

(5) In subsection (4), “relevant incidents” has the same meaning as in section 39.

(6) Regulations under this section require incidents to be reported only so far as the authority in question has obtained information about them in the performance of its functions.

(7) Regulations under this section may contain provision about the timing, form and contents of reports.