A Qualitative Analysis of the German Road Traffic Regulations (StVO) for Automated Driving

An Automated Driving Systems (ADS) must comply with traffic regulations that are still primarily written for human drivers, such as the German Road Traffic Regulations (StVO). Automatically assessing legal compliance remains a key challenge, as existing formalization approaches typically cover only limited rule subsets. In this paper, we present a comprehensive qualitative analysis of the StVO, focusing on regulations relevant to passenger vehicles. Using inductive coding, we categorize legal concepts, quantify the relevant share of the regulation that apply to ADSs, and identify recurring sentence structures. The analysis highlights structural limitations such as vague formulations, implicit assumptions, and missing quantification that hinder formalization and verification of ADSs. Based on our results, we motivate recommendations for future legislation that is better suited for automated interpretation and monitoring.