The UK's Department for Transport outlines rules for self-driving vehicles, including letting drivers watch TV on the go, ahead of a full framework in 2025
People using self-driving cars will be allowed to watch television on built-in screens under proposed updates to the Highway Code.
Context & Ripple Effects
The Department for Transport’s proposed Highway Code update advances a legal-preparation effort that began with a review of driving laws for self-driving vehicles and followed years of public-road testing. It turns the question from whether automated vehicles may be tested into what occupants may do when an approved system is driving.
The policy also sits alongside UK development and trial activity, including FiveAI’s London passenger-route trials and Wayve’s autonomous-driving work. The rules matter because they define a visible boundary between permitted in-car use and conventional driving obligations.
First-order effects
- Drivers using qualifying self-driving vehicles would be permitted to watch television on built-in screens under the proposed Highway Code changes, while the Department for Transport establishes the operating rules ahead of the planned 2025 framework.
- Vehicle makers and automated-driving developers gain a clearer basis for designing built-in entertainment experiences around UK self-driving use cases.
Second-order effects
- The proposed distinction for built-in screens puts pressure on vehicle interfaces to separate approved in-car functions from the phone use that the UK had moved to prohibit while driving.
- Companies running passenger services, including those involved in later London autonomous-taxi plans, would face a more defined passenger-experience rulebook as commercial deployment moves beyond safety-driver trials.
Third-order effects
- If the Highway Code changes become part of the wider framework, UK automated-vehicle policy will increasingly govern the driver’s changing role, not only vehicle testing—linking consumer features to public-safety rules.
- That regulatory clarity favors developers able to demonstrate when their systems qualify for non-driving occupant activity, potentially making compliance design a competitive requirement for UK deployments.
The trend: Autonomous-vehicle regulation is shifting from permitting road tests toward codifying what humans may do when automated systems take over driving tasks.