Driverless Cars promoted by Google and other companies are slowly but steadily entering our lives. What seemed like a pure speculation just a few years ago already exists in experimental variations, drives through busy streets and generally stays out of harm's way – the track record of the aforementioned Google car is far better than that of your average driver. However, there are still accidents, and some of them lead to serious consequences, including fatalities.
Of course, deaths on roads caused by people are far more statistically probable, and even in case of accidents with driverless cars it is often hard to distinguish where to put the blame, but these things do happen, and every time they do people start to ask themselves again: what does it mean for the future of autonomous cars? And, which is no less important and interesting, what does it mean for the law concerning road accidents? If an accident is caused by a driverless car, who are you supposed to sue? Whose blame is it?
These questions are important both for lawyers, for whom it is a matter of their job and future practice and for all other people – as autonomous cars are getting more and more widespread, these cases, no matter how statistically rare, will become less of a novelty and more of a mundane occurrence. Autonomous car producers claim they are going to be exceptions, but still.
The fatal accident with Tesla Model S last summer showed us the first glimpse of this new world. The car manufacturer denied being responsible for the crash and death of the driver, reminding the public that they reiterated time and again that their driverless car technology isn't supposed to replace the driver completely, at least not at the current stage of development. The driver is supposed to maintain control of the moving vehicle in case he needs to interfere at a critical moment.
However, it is just one approach, and it looks too much like an attempt to avoid taking responsibility. Other researchers in the field of driverless vehicles, namely Google, Ford and Volvo, consider the kind of technology offered by Tesla to carry inherent danger in itself. It is a driverless car – yet it still requires the driver to keep attention on the road, thus stating ahead of time that any accident he is going to get into due to trusting it too much is completely his fault.
At the same time, it lures the driver into a false sense of security, offers him the pleasure and luxury of letting the car drive itself, positions itself as a car that can be left to its own devices – and states that you use all these benefits at your own risk.
It is not the only lawsuit concerning the new technology – there is at least one more due to a death of a driver in China, although it wasn't as high-profile.
So, whose blame is it if a driverless car causes an accident? Putting the answer simply, nobody knows at the moment. There is too little legal basis for making any conclusions. So far, it is a matter of opinion rather than that of a clearly defined legal standard. Some believe that the car's owner is supposed to be held responsible – your car, your responsibility. Drivers and their families mostly lean toward the idea that the car manufacturer is to bear the blame – after all, if a car is marketed as being able to control itself and avoid accidents when it clearly doesn't live up to these expectations it is supposed to be a clear case of supplier's fault.
Arrangements like that of Tesla Model S, which are technically semi-autonomous and are controlled both by the driver and the AI simultaneously, make the situation even less definite. Both are supposed to be responsible, but how is this responsibility to be shared?
All in all, recent happenings in this field show that humankind is doing what it always does when encountering something new that doesn't fall into habitual patterns. We study it, learn its applications and slowly but steadily develop legal arrangements to deal with it, following the same basic laws as with everything else.