The UK government has announced that driverless cars will be allowed on public roads from January next year.
It also invited cities to compete to host one of three trials of the tech, which would start at the same time.
In addition, ministers ordered a review of the UK’s road regulations to provide appropriate guidelines.
UK engineers, including a group at the University of Oxford, have been experimenting with driverless cars. But, concerns about legal and insurance issues have so far restricted the machines to private roads.
The US States of California, Nevada and Florida have all approved tests of the self-driving cars. In California alone, Google’s driverless car has done more than 300,000 miles on the open road.
In 2013, Nissan carried out Japan’s first public road test of driver-less car.
The debate now is whether to allow cars, like the prototype unveiled by Google in May, to abandon controls including a steering wheel and pedals and rely on the vehicle’s computer. Or whether, instead, to allow the machine to drive, but insist a passenger be ready to wrest back control at a moment’s notice.
