#5 Law

Despite autonomous vehicles having a promising future, we shouldn't neglect the fact that legal framework that should govern them is not synchronous with the technological advances. This blog discusses the legal dimensions involving autonomous vehicles.  

 The legal status of autonomous vehicles

The public and governments are not sure about the reliability of the new technology  and thus hold a relatively conservative attitude towards it. Take U.S. as an example, California and Florida are the only two states enacted and chaptered bills related to autonomous vehicles back to 2012. However, things have changed a lot now. According to NCSL(National Conference of State Legislatures), 33 states have introduced legislation on this issue. Fig.1 shows the status of legislation in the United States. Some others are still under consideration while some else have failed to make it through the legislative council. More and more states are trying to cover legal issues on autonomous vehicles. Recently in June, Colorado has passed its first law to regulate autonomous vehicles, which legitimates autonomous vehicles testing on the road.

Fig.1  Status of legislation in the United States

Challenges facing the legal framework

There're only two federal bills in the United States so far, both introduced in 2015. Despite the progress of the legislation, the legal framework remains challenged. Present bills and those under consideration are mostly based on the existing laws and bills. Therefore, the bills may not keep up with the rapid development of autonomous vehicles. Another problem is that present bills related to autonomous vehicles are not systematic, which may cause conflicts with other laws.

Challenges facing the regulation of autonomous vehicles

Since autonomous vehicle is a relatively new field, standardized regulation is needed to keep it on the right track. Designers and manufacturers would pay less attention to the safety in order to save the cost and provide some aggressive settings as features targeted at specific customers. To guarantee the safety on the road, autonomous vehicles are required to pass different tests after mass production and before being put into the market. However, manufacturers may be discouraged if regulation is too strict. Thus, governments need to take both the pros and cons into consideration and carry out regulations that can promote the development instead of being an obstacle.

Issues with liability

Autonomous vehicle is designed to offer people an experience of hand-free driving and make transportation more convenient. However, it cannot avoid crashes with 100% confidence. In this case, issues with liability come up. There're 3 targets we can blame for in an autonomous vehicle accident.

• Driver liability. Traditional negligence theory insists that human drivers should take the responsibility to control their vehicles and avoid accidents from happening. An individual driver should be held liable for harms caused by unreasonably failing to prevent the risk.
• Manufacturer's liability. Manufacturing defects can lead to auto accidents and injuries and death coming along with them. Therefore, auto manufacturers have a duty to exercise a reasonable degree of care in designing autonomous vehicles so that the automobiles will be safe when used in reasonably foreseeable ways.
•  Designer's liability. Design defects are alleged when the foreseeable risks of harm could have been reduced or avoided by the use of a more reasonable alternative design. 

Weblinks
http://cyberlaw.stanford.edu/blog/2016/09/michigans-automated-driving-bills

http://www.ncsl.org/Portals/1/Documents/transportation/Introduced2012AutonVehLeg.pdf

http://www.ncsl.org/research/transportation/autonomous-vehicles-self-driving-vehicles-enacted-legislation.aspx#Enacted%20Autonomous%20Vehicle%20Legislation

http://knowledgecenter.csg.org/kc/system/files/CR_automomous.pdf

http://faculty.cbpa.drake.edu/dmr/0412/DMR041204S.pdf