Driverless cars could be on UK streets in six months

Without a change in the law, driverless cars being tested on UK roads might need a guard walking ahead of them, the mayor of Milton Keynes told New Scientist in January. The idea has echoes of early 20th century, when men carried red flags ahead of the first cars.

But guards won't be necessary after all. The UK business secretary Vince Cable announced on 30 July that the law is to be changed to allow driverless cars, like those famously pioneered by Google, to ply Britain's roads by January 2015.

Cable told the Motor Industry Research Association in Nuneaton that the law "will be reviewed" soon to take account of two types of possible driverless car operations: one in which a qualified driver can take control of the car if necessary, and another scenario in which the car is always fully autonomous.

In addition, the government is asking UK cities to bid to be the first to host driverless car trials – and three successful municipalities will share a prize fund of £10 million to stage them. Each project will last between 18 and 36 months and will kick off in January.

Making self-driving cars street legal has been welcomed both by councillors and researchers in autonomous technology.

"It's a great step forward. There is finally a recognition by government that this is the 21st century and that cars are able to guide themselves," says John Bint, a councillor in Milton Keynes who has helped spearhead the city's plan to roll out two-person autonomous taxi "pods" in the city centre by 2017.

Meanwhile, at the University of Oxford's mobile robotics department, where much of the UK's driverless car research is centred, researcher Ingmar Posner says gaining the freedom to use the roads as a testbed is great news.

"It will be really helpful as we look at how autonomous vehicles could help to ease traffic congestion and deliver a safer and more pleasant driving experience," he says.

Oxford's work is sponsored in part by Japanese car-maker Nissan – and a driverless version of the company's Leaf electric car is thought to be in design there, alongside an autonomous military jeep. The Oxford team are also working on the laser and radar sensing technology for the Milton Keynes autonomous pods – small vehicles like the "Johnny Cabs" in the original Total Recall movie, without the android drivers. They are being built by the automotive engineering firm RDM Group in Coventry.

With Google steaming ahead with its autonomous vehicle programme – having already revealed an early passenger-friendly design for a driverless car – the UK has been lagging behind the US, where California, Nevada and Arizona already allow driverless operation, albeit with safety drivers at the ready. Google's cars have already completed more than 480,000 kilometres of tests.

The driverless roads initiative is the second, innovation-related joint announcement from the government's business and transport departments in as many weeks: on 15 July, they announced plans for a UK spaceport for space tourism operations which, like the driverless plan, is designed to seize early-mover advantage for UK high-tech firms as demand takes off.