Re:Driverless Cars Threaten to Crash Insurers’ Earnings
by objclxt on Tuesday July 26, 2016 @07:07PM
(#12169386)
> With self-driving cars, the first one is impossible. A car that follows the law to the letter is by definition never at fault in a collision.
You can still be "at fault" even if you followed the law in a collision. Laws - particularly driving laws - are not always black and white.
This becomes absurd with self-driving cars. There are three types of collisions with human-driven cars:
1. Those caused by driver negligence.
2. Those caused by the owner failing to properly maintain their vehicle.
3. Those caused by a manufacturing defect.
With self-driving cars, the first one is impossible. A car that follows the law to the letter is by definition never at fault in a collision. The second one is still possible, but probably less likely. The car can take itself to the shop without your intervention, and I expect manufacturers would have it refuse to drive itself if you're too far off the maintenance schedule. The third category will now include bugs in the driving software, so the rate of collisions that fall under option 3 is likely to go up a bit.
Option 3 means that the manufacturer is liable, not the owner of the car. Since this encompasses the vast majority of self-driving car collisions, personal liability will no longer be truly necessary like it is today.