Automatic Vehicles and Legal/Insurance Risks. A New British “Quasi-Legislative” Point of Observation and Glimpses of Liability in Tort in Italy

The chapter discusses the legal concept of automated motor vehicles pursuant to the UK statute, as well as the linkage with the pertinent insurance coverage, this analysis being carried out also in the light of the potential reverberations on the Italian legal system. Of the latter, on the other hand, the UK legislation may be regarded as the forerunner. The automated vehicles, including the most extreme forms of driverless vehicles, will seemingly be used in the UK in the imminent future. Meanwhile, in 2018, a piece of legislation has been passed whose purposes is to legislate on both the insurance contract (and the way the liability shall be apportioned among insurer, owner and, particularly, the manufacturer) and the administrative law (therefore, the regulation) of the automated vehicles, focused on a register kept by the Secretary of State.