The article presents the results of a scientific study of current issues of risk management associated with ensuring safe operation of unmanned vehicles, obtained by the authors as a result of implementation of the second stage of a scientific project supported by the Russian Science Foundation. The conclusions presented in the article are based on the results of a study of legal and organisational problems of ensuring the safe use of unmanned vehicles in a metropolis, carried out during the first stage of the project.The study confirmed the authors’ assumption that solving the problem of ensuring the safe use of unmanned vehicles is possible based on scientific research into the risks arising during their operation. It is substantiated that identification, differentiation, monitoring of risks determined by appearance of unmanned vehicles on highways is a necessary condition for development of a scientifically based system of legal measures of general and private prevention, including measures of legal liability for relevant offenses, based on categorisation of risks and threats of violation of mandatory requirements adopted to ensure transport safety and traffic management using this type of vehicle.The fundamental provisions are analysed and comprehended underlying the application of the riskbased approach in homogeneous and single-type social relations.