Self Driving Cars are Coming. The Law May Not be Ready for Them

As the days go by, in the background, car manufacturers inch closer and closer to the day that cars are truly self driving, or autonomous. But as slow as that pace seems to be, it is a lot faster than the pace of the laws that we use to resolve liability and responsibility in car accidents.

Robotaxi Severely Injured Pedestrian

Recently, in California, a woman was hit by a car. The impact of the accident propelled her body into the oncoming path of a fully autonomous robotaxi, which hit the woman again. The robotaxi immediately drove to the side of the road, and in doing so, dragged the woman’s body with it. She did survive and as of now, no lawsuit has been filed, though the company operating the taxi will pay a $1.5 million fine.

Who is Liable?

But what if the robotaxi company was sued? Circumstances like these are virtually guaranteed to happen over and over again, as more and more self-driving cars hit the roads.

And this leads to a lot of legal questions.

The first question is whether, in an accident like this one, in the event the taxi company were to be sued, whether the case would be one for negligence, or for product liability. It is likely it would be the latter, but that’s not always so clear—especially in cases where self-driving cars are supposed to be monitored or helmed by actual people.

In that case, car manufacturers will try to pin liability on the human drivers—even if it was the car doing the driving at the time of the accident.

Problems WIth Products Liability

If the manufacturer is liable under a product liability theory, product designers are allowed to say as a defense that there is no reasonable alternative to whatever defect the product may have had.

In an accident like the one above, that would leave a victim to have to convince a jury that an autonomous car should have known and detected a body underneath it, and that stopping where the accident happened, was something that a car could have been programmed to do.

While that seems obvious, because self-driving technology is so new, it would be difficult to convince a jury that a self-driving car could ever be designed to act a certain way, or that it could be programmed to act a certain way, in a given situation. The limits of technology may provide car manufacturers a solid defense to these kinds of cases.

What is Negligent?

Then there are standards of liability when it comes to negligence. In the accident above, the robotaxi would normally have been doing the right thing—pulling over immediately after an accident. Except that it had a body underneath it. Whether that is negligent or not, would be an open question or a court to determine.

Still Better?

Others however point out that for all their faults, self-driving cars still offer a world where there are no drowsy, distracted, or drunk drivers—and for that, many claim, they are an improvement to the current car accident landscape.

No matter who was driving the other car in your accident, we can help you get compensation for your injuries.  Call the Boston personal injury lawyers at The Law Office of Joseph Linnehan, Jr. today at 617-275-4200 for help.

Sources:

reuters.com/legal/transactional/column-driverless-car-problems-are-outpacing-liability-laws-2023-12-11/

cbsnews.com/sanfrancisco/news/nhtsa-robotaxi-cruise-pay-penalty-failing-report-san-francisco-crash-involving-pedestrian/