Autonomous Mobility Through the Lens of Czech Legislation. When Will We See Driverless Vehicles on the Roads?

On January 1, 2026, an amendment to the Road Traffic Act took effect. Through this amendment, lawmakers responded to the development of autonomous mobility, which represents one of the most significant technological and regulatory shifts in the transportation sector in recent decades. New provisions regulating the operation of automated vehicles on Czech roads have been added to the legal framework. What changes do they bring? What lies ahead? And when will we see fully driverless vehicles on the roads?

Vehicles equipped with automated driving systems raise new questions from the perspective of liability, road traffic safety, personal data protection, or technical regulations. The article provides answers to the most current of these issues.

Česká republika gradually implements European and international regulations in the field of automated vehicles, in particular in connection with UN (UNECE) legislative activity and EU secondary law. In this context, Act No. 130/2025 Coll. was adopted, amending Act No. 111/1994 Coll., on Road Transport, as amended, and other related laws (hereinafter referred to as the "amendment"). The amendment introduced a change into Act No. 361/2000 Coll., on the operation of road traffic and on amendments to certain laws (the Road Traffic Act), in Section 2 letter d), by redefining the existing term driver. According to this provision, a driver is newly defined as “a road user/participant in road traffic who operates a motor or non-motor vehicle or a tram; a driver is also a rider on an animal or a person who, in an automated vehicle according to a directly applicable regulation of Evropské unie governing the approval of vehicles in terms of general safety (hereinafter referred to as ‘automated vehicle’), sits in the driver’s seat”.

The redefinition of the term driver, where the term "automated vehicle" was also used for the first time, in terms of content is mainly aimed, especially also in the context of the new Section 79b of the Road Traffic Act, at automated vehicles with so-called conditional automation, which according to the international SAE International scale are referred to as Level 3 (for simplicity hereinafter “L3 vehicles”). This is the first level of automation at which the vehicle can operate itself if certain conditions are met. The fulfillment of these conditions (e.g., full functionality of all systems, suitable location, weather, etc.) is recognized by the vehicle itself, which then offers the driver the possibility to take over control. The vehicle monitors traffic, keeps to its lane, and adjusts its speed.

As already indicated above, the legislator in connection with automated vehicles also adopted the new Section 79b of the Road Traffic Act, where the basic rules of liability were defined. In general, the concept was adopted whereby the driver, during the operation of the automated vehicle by said vehicle, is not liable for complying with road traffic rules or other driver’s obligations related to operation, which are ensured by the automated vehicle. However, the driver must at all times be ready to safely take over control of the vehicle, and if signaled by the vehicle to do so, he or she must act immediately. To prove who was operating the vehicle at any given moment, under Section 79b of the Road Traffic Act, drivers are required to provide police officers or military police officers with information on the operation of the vehicle, from which it can be verified whether the vehicle was operated by itself or by the driver. With regard to the principle Nemo tenetur se ipsum accusare (no one is obliged to accuse themselves), the legislator established a rebuttable legal presumption that if the driver does not provide information about who was operating the vehicle, it is presumed that the vehicle was operated by the driver.

The legislator thus defined who is at any given time liable for complying with road traffic rules and secured evidence (means of evidence) for proving this fact. From the perspective of public liability for complying with driver’s obligations and the duty to comply with road traffic rules, the legislator adopted a solution in the new amendment to Section 127f of the Road Traffic Act. In Section 127f, a new paragraph 7 was inserted, which exonerates the operator (of the vehicle) from liability for breach of driver's duty and road traffic rules under paragraph 1 if it is proven that at the time of the breach, compliance with these obligations was ensured by the automated vehicle. However, if the vehicle was involved in an accident, the question of determining liability will be anything but easy. The traditional concept of legal liability is founded on the transfer of adverse consequences to a specific person. The issue of legal liability is thus relevant in terms of both public and private law. Therefore, it will not necessarily only concern a breach of driver's duty or compliance with road traffic rules.

From a civil law perspective, under liability for damage caused by the operation of a means of transport within the meaning of Section 2927 of the Civil Code, the operator (of the vehicle) will be objectively liable unless there is a reason for exoneration under paragraph 2 of said provision. The damage will thus, in all likelihood, be covered by motor third party liability insurance. However, if the vehicle was being operated by itself at the time of the accident, it will be very difficult to determine which entity ultimately caused the damage – will it be a defect in the system and thus the manufacturer will be liable? Did the system perform a faulty maneuver because of loss of geolocation services or infrastructure error? Will then the owner or the road infrastructure administrator be liable? And who is responsible for incorrect or insufficient data/information, from which the system controlling the dynamic driving function derived? Securing evidence (means of evidence) regarding the cause of the damage will also be rather difficult, as the assessment of whether the system functioned correctly will most probably only be possible for a qualified expert.

Fundamental changes will also occur in the data basis for the accident investigation of automated vehicles, where data from the vehicle’s recording device will play a major role. New cars in general are already equipped with recording devices, so-called event data recorders or EDR (Event Data Recorder). EDR operates on the principle of continuous collection of specifically defined anonymized data. However, EDR does not contain information about the activation of the system responsible for the dynamic driving functions of the automated vehicle. Information on the vehicle control is recorded in the Data Storage System for Automated Driving, the so-called DSSAD (Data Storage System for Automated Driving). This is a system that monitors the status of the automated driving system and is only available in vehicles with a higher level of automation (from automation level L3 onwards). The manufacturer must guarantee that this data/information cannot be retrospectively edited. The availability of this information is governed by the requirements of national legal regulations under international regulation, but such legislation has not yet been adopted. As soon as DSSAD reaches the storage data limit, the existing records will only be overwritten according to the "first in, first out" rule.If you become a road user/participant in road traffic involved in a traffic accident in an automated vehicle, it is definitely recommended to secure data from the recording devices without undue delay.

Vehicles without drivers thus cannot yet be encountered on the roads today. However, L3 vehicles must be understood as a technological intermediate step, which is being quickly followed by much more advanced vehicle technologies at SAE Level 4. These vehicles are already considered fully automated, meaning without any need for intervention by a physical person – a driver, who is often not present in the vehicle at all. Such a highly automated system is not only a revolution in the world of technology, but it is above all a huge challenge for legislation, which will have to confront this phenomenon. Vehicles at automation level L4 can in fact already be approved, although so far only in limited production series. However, it is clear that union-wide regulation of large-scale production will not be long in coming, and soon we will really see vehicles without drivers.

From the website epravo.cz