If A Self-Driving Car Kills A Pedestrian, Who Is At Fault?

Ducman69 said:

In some ways it can be better than a human, by vehicle-to-vehicle communication for example.

Even without it, this Tesla noticed the cars braked ahead and predicated the accident before the driver even saw it, since his forward view was obscured by the vehicle in front of him:

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If every car properly followed the rules of the roads without ever getting distracted, getting places by car will be much safer as well as less congestion. Autonomous cars fit this very definition. Human drivers do not. Vehicle communication is just icing on the cake.

Tsumi said:

If every car properly followed the rules of the roads without ever getting distracted, getting places by car will be much safer as well as less congestion. Autonomous cars fit this very definition. Human drivers do not. Vehicle communication is just icing on the cake.

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Humans in general are just stupid when it comes to risks. You can argue with somebody who fears air travel about how statistically safe plane travel really is to death, then watch him cross a road with eyes fixated on his phone like it's no big deal.

I would trust a machine by far more than the average driver.

Palladium@SG said:

Humans in general are just stupid when it comes to risks. You can argue with somebody who fears air travel about how statistically safe plane travel really is to death, then watch him cross a road with eyes fixated on his phone like it's no big deal.

I would trust a machine by far more than the average driver.

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The question is, when you got hit by a car driven by machine, will you say "That is fine, no one is responsible for my injuries because it was a machine that was doing the driving." If that is not likely what you will say, then who should be responsible? Yes, the machine may have chose to hit you instead of running over some kids, but who should be responsible for your injuries? What if you are the owner of the car who sat in the driver seat?

Ducman69 said:

In some ways it can be better than a human, by vehicle-to-vehicle communication for example.

Even without it, this Tesla noticed the cars braked ahead and predicated the accident before the driver even saw it, since his forward view was obscured by the vehicle in front of him:

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And sometimes, not all the time, just sometimes, it does this:

They figure out what happened? I assume the vision sensor was damaged or obscured?

Twisted Kidney said:

This falls under "fabricating conundrums because I fear thing". It will be much more difficult to alter the machine record and altering it WILL leave evidence.

It's far easier to run a dude down and just lie about it.

Nefarious autonomous vehicle hacking syndicates are going to have a much tougher time of it than a driver that lies about running down Judy Jogger in the park.

Every aspect of this situation is improved by an autonomous vehicle over a driver.

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This seems to fall under, "people who disagree with me are dumb." I don't fear autonomous vehicles, but I do fear technological hubris, to which I feel technological enthusiasts are particularly susceptible. I agree, in theory/on paper, an AV could improve many situations, and it will eventually be the excepted norm. But blindly believing in any system's infallibility is asking for trouble. I realize my example of unspecified "criminals" was a poor illustration of that idea, and you aren't explicitly advocating blind faith. Will it minimize some of the fraudulent methods currently being used? Certainly, but the belief that fraud will be eliminated seems misplaced, and can lead down a dangerous, slippery slope.
Tl;dr: cars not bad, hubris bad.

Thanks Obama.

serious said:

The question is, when you got hit by a car driven by machine, will you say "That is fine, no one is responsible for my injuries because it was a machine that was doing the driving." If that is not likely what you will say, then who should be responsible? Yes, the machine may have chose to hit you instead of running over some kids, but who should be responsible for your injuries? What if you are the owner of the car who sat in the driver seat?

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Who pays when an airplane crashes? All airliners are required to have insurance, and that is what will pay. It will be the case here. In the case of a machine malfunction causing the accident, general no-fault insurance will pay for it.

There are a lot of issues both legally and socially that need to be worked out before we can have a general roll out of self driving cars. Point 1: People are generally more forgiving of people making mistakes, even fatal ones, than machines. Especially software. If a software bug causes a crash then people will call it "defective" and the victims will seek redress via the courts. And if deep pockets are involved (like google), then they will have even more incentive to sue. Point 2: You can put whatever you want in a contract, but counts can and do throw out anything that they deem "unconscionable". So purveyors of self driving cars may not be able to shield themselves from liability as easily as some think. I have worked for several medical device companies over my career and I can tell you that their biggest fear is a single large lawsuit over a single "wrongful" death bankrupting the company. In fact, this potential liability made it difficult to buy electronic components from the normal suppliers. They didn't want the risk of being named co-defendants. This is one of the reasons that Medtronic owns it's own chip design and fab company. They couldn't find anybody who would sell them processors and memory.

Technology is great until it doesn't work. Think about how pissed off you get when your phone or computer does not work correctly. It will be a lot worse when it's your car. Why would you think that software will be any better when it's the same people writing it?

I think manufacturers will be liable but liability will probably be limited in terms of dollar amount because overall self-driving vehicles will greatly reduce traffic related fatalities.

PersonalJ said:

I think manufacturers will be liable but liability will probably be limited in terms of dollar amount because overall self-driving vehicles will greatly reduce traffic related fatalities.

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I fail to understand why anyone thinks that the manufacturers will be willing to shoulder the costs of liability coverage just so they can sell a new product. Google has been a major leader in the autonomous vehicle push and recently they have announced that they are not going to push forward and produce the vehicles, only the tech behind the autonomous capabilities which of course they will simply license out.

These companies are not going to accept the burden of insuring your car for you and if they do, it will become more like you paying for a SeriusXM subscription that renews every year. You can bet your ass these companies have already got this thing ironed out with the government and that they are not going to pick up our insurance tab just because they made your life safer and easier.

"Deserves got nuthin' to do with it"

lcpiper said:

I fail to understand why anyone thinks that the manufacturers will be willing to shoulder the costs of liability coverage just so they can sell a new product. Google has been a major leader in the autonomous vehicle push and recently they have announced that they are not going to push forward and produce the vehicles, only the tech behind the autonomous capabilities which of course they will simply license out.

These companies are not going to accept the burden of insuring your car for you and if they do, it will become more like you paying for a SeriusXM subscription that renews every year. You can bet your ass these companies have already got this thing ironed out with the government and that they are not going to pick up our insurance tab just because they made your life safer and easier.

"Deserves got nuthin' to do with it"

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With caps on liability the insurance bill will be minuscule compared to what is currently charged. Accident rates for self-driving cars will be far lower and almost all accidents involving them will have an external, human driver who was the cause.

dethklokworkorange said:

This seems to fall under, "people who disagree with me are dumb." I don't fear autonomous vehicles, but I do fear technological hubris, to which I feel technological enthusiasts are particularly susceptible. I agree, in theory/on paper, an AV could improve many situations, and it will eventually be the excepted norm. But blindly believing in any system's infallibility is asking for trouble. I realize my example of unspecified "criminals" was a poor illustration of that idea, and you aren't explicitly advocating blind faith. Will it minimize some of the fraudulent methods currently being used? Certainly, but the belief that fraud will be eliminated seems misplaced, and can lead down a dangerous, slippery slope.
Tl;dr: cars not bad, hubris bad.

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You don't have to be stupid to say stupid things.

The idea that accepting anything that is an improvement as an improvement is somehow "hubris" is nonsense. People watch way too much science fiction.

PersonalJ said:

With caps on liability the insurance bill will be minuscule compared to what is currently charged. Accident rates for self-driving cars will be far lower and almost all accidents involving them will have an external, human driver who was the cause.

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These companies don't see even a minuscule charge as acceptable if they can avoid it all together.

Miniscule <Greater Than> 0 = No Brainer, make the other guy pay it and make him happy that he's saving so much.

Accident rates will be far lower, you have much more faith in your crystal ball then I do. So far, you don't even have an autonomously driven car that can drive on icy / snowy / heavy rainfall roads at all. Not at all. That is one hell of a lot of inoperable road conditions that your new car without a steering wheel can't navigate on.

I have said it many times, someone show me an autonomous car dealing with an icy road cause until you do, this future has a narrow application window that so many people are just not seeing. The cars are simply not there yet for most of the US during most of the year.

I am not saying they won't figure it out. I'm saying I haven't seen it yet, and until then, they have a problem with all this.