The recent spate of incidents relating to self-driving cars, mostly in the US, have only added further confusion for legislators struggling to develop coherent and consistent rules for compliance safety and liability. Not for the first time, manufacturers and others involved in development have complained that government and regulatory bodies have been lagging way behind the technology. But that is inevitable and legislators do find themselves between a rock and a hard place. The rock is the risk that premature legislation hinders the development of autonomous driving and acts as a disincentive or competitive disadvantage for a given country. The hard place is the lack of clarity over what will be permissible, as well as uncertainty over issues such as…