Alex Glassbrook is the author of Advanced, Automated and Electric Vehicle Law.
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There were positives and negatives. Serious personal injury work is a large part of my practice at the bar, so I see a lot of clients who have suffered life-changing injuries as a result of road traffic collisions. I don’t think you can see that without wanting to explore solutions and ways in which to make the use of road vehicles safer. As well as providing mobility and everything that goes with it, motor vehicle technology has historically been both a solution and a creator of risk. Regulation has grown around that and – when done well and in good time (which has not always been the case) - has been a force for good. So exploring better solutions would be the first motivator of my interest in vehicle technology, and my first reason for exploring it deeply, as a distinct legal topic.
Positively, from my Dad – and from his Dad – I’ve inherited a fascination with vehicles. My Dad is a devoted car enthusiast and his Dad worked in the motor factories. In my Grandad’s retirement he worked part-time delivering cars from the Midlands to London; I’ve a vivid childhood memory of him arriving in our cul-de-sac in a Ferrari. I’m a very keen cyclist as well (cul-de-sacs were an important part of this – lots of opportunities to make ramps and fall off bikes). The car enthusiasm seems to have lasted – my older son is a massive Formula 1 fan. Fortunately my children haven’t built as many bike ramps as I did.
Finally – and I think this is positive - both of my children love computers and have grown up in the post-iPhone era of touchscreens, gaming and graphics chips. Technology gets a bad write-up, but those are the innovations that have enabled neural networks and which are changing the world. Interest in computing leads to computer science, which leads to maths. I was lucky to grow up in the age of personal home computers, and I have seen my kids grow into this new era. When they were very young they couldn’t understand why I was so excited by video calls on a smartphone: to me, that’s science fiction; to them, it’s normal. Now they’re both studying computer science and maths. I’m envious.
The technical side is a matter for engineers and computer scientists, so it’s very exciting to be teaching regulation to specialists at Imperial College’s Centre for Transport Studies. I’m always learning. My best guess (and it can only be an educated guess) is that advanced and automated features in vehicles will continue to progress in particular settings, and that we will suddenly realise that our vehicles can do truly remarkable things.
In advanced technologies, I would hope that the safety advantages of features which allow distance-keeping and speed control will become clear, and that regulation will support those innovations. The technologies might emerge in various settings – delivery is another possible area of advancement. We could end up with an ‘iPhone moment’ of innovation in transport, though people sometimes only recognise that this has happened after it has passed. In electric vehicles, the variety of smaller vehicles has increased noticeably over recent years.
We are in the second age of electric vehicles; this is not the first time that people have looked to batteries to provide personal mobility. I am, with only a little apology, obsessed by the history – see the appendix to the book!
In principle, yes. But the law comes from many sources – not just directly from legislation or court judgments, but also indirectly from other sources, especially from industrial standards. Standards are highly influential but hidden to most; getting to the bottom of their place in law was one of the longer journeys when writing the book. Part of analysing the whole body of law applicable to motor vehicles is the realisation that some aspects of vehicle use remain sparsely regulated for years. That can be because cases are not brought before the courts to the extent that people expected (which is true of product liability cases) or because the subject of regulation was not thought to have widespread social support so was politically unattractive. This happened in the case of seatbelts, which were fitted in vehicles as a matter of law from the 1960s but not made compulsory to use until the 1980s, in spite of a succession of members of parliament pursuing private members’ bills but lacking government support.
It’s a mistake to assume that regulation will become comprehensive just through the passage of time. Professor Elizabeth Fisher makes a crucial but unfamiliar point in the context of environmental law: law is about choosing the world you want to live in.
I love the bar. When I was growing up I didn’t know any lawyers, but I saw ‘Crown Court’ on TV and was fascinated by the barristers. Practice at the bar has lived up to that. Every case is absorbing; every part of every trial deserves deep thought, and lots of preparation, so that feeds my meticulous side. In some ways, every case is like sitting an exam: there’s the same immersion and exhaustion afterwards, the same sense of leaving everything on the field. But it’s so much more than that. There is a client at the heart of every case.
I find it difficult to think of the worst part of the job. Perhaps the hardest part of legal work becoming more remote and screen-based, over recent years, was missing the cup of tea and pack of shortbread biscuits on the train coming home after a case. It still feels good to be back on a train on the way to and from court. And it’s a reminder to keep more biscuits at home as well.
