The UK government is to allow testing of self drive cars on public roads next year. Currently autonomous vehicles are only allowed on private roads in the UK and Ireland.

The UK government wants to signal that it can be a leader in self drive technology, but up until now concerns about legal and insurance issues have restricted testing activity to private facilities. This has put the UK behind other countries and US states where for example Google's driverless car has covered more than 300,000 miles on public roads. Nissan has also test the technology on Japanese roads. Meanwhile the city of Gothenburg will allow 1,000 Volvo driverless cars to take to the road by 2017.

While the technology moves forward concerns are still being expressed over safety and legality. Recently the US crime agency the FBI raised concerns about how driverless cars could be used as lethal weapons. They argue that the technology is a game changer and predict that the vehicles "will have a high impact on transforming what both law enforcement and its adversaries can operationally do with a car".