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Government to trial driverless cars from January 2015

The government will announce new measures today which will see driverless cars on the streets of Britain in 2015.

Business Secretary Vince Cable will later confirm that the first trials of the self-driving vehicles will start in January next year.

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Driverless cars will be on UK roads in 'under 6 months'

Business Secretary Vince Cable has announced today that new measures would see "fleets" of driverless cars take to Britain's roads "in less than six months”.

The Business Secretary said driverless cars would be on the roads in Credit: PA

The Government plans to adapt road regulations, which requires changes to the Highway Code, to allow companies to start running trials of cars that do not need a human driver.

Cable said the satellite controlled vehicles are putting the nation "at the forefront of transformational technology" and believes the UK has the "potential to be a world leader in this field".

We will have vehicles which will have automatic parking, we can have automatic breaking which can reduce the risk of tailgating and things of that kind, so these features will gradually be built in.

The key point is that British satellite technology is now pretty advanced, we are now one of the leading countries in the world, and the British car manufacturing industry is very successful.

– Mr Cable

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