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Re:Robot cars on public roads? California says yes by greg_bt on Thursday August 30, 2012 @09:25PM (#4457742)
If you had a human driven car, would a malfunction in the car causing a crash be your fault? [1] I can see that if you hadn't updated the firmware of the car then maybe it could be claimed that you had not performed adequate maintenance?

[1]: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1236020/Horror-ride-...

Re:Robot cars on public roads? California says yes by abruzzi on Thursday August 30, 2012 @11:44PM (#4458166)
Vehicle integrity is the responsibility of the driver for human driven cars, I assume it would be the same for autonomous vehicles. The problem comes when you are driving a 15 year old car because you can afford new. For non autonomous vehicles mechanical safety is dependent on powertrain, steering, and brakes, all of which are under manual control. Maintaining the integrity of autonomous system--its computer, its sensors, its radar/gps, the accuracy of its maps, will be even more important than the maintenance of those manual system.