The auto industry is clearly convinced that the question of
autonomous vehicles is “not if, but when,” writes
Motor Trend technical director Frank Markus, reporting
from a forum on Intelligent Transportation Systems in Detroit. Lux Research
projects $87 billion in revenues by 2030. But the view is not so clear
concerning how the longstanding legal guidelines around automotive liability
will be affected.
Markus notes a number of relatively clear benefits of a working
national system, such as reducing accidents by potentially as much as 95%,
according to Bryant Walker Smith of the University of South Carolina law
school. Other benefits: increased mobility for nondrivers, reduced fuel
consumption, and intelligent driving patterns.
On the other side of the coin, intelligent transportation systems could
increase road use and congestion, reduce public transportation usage, and
create an economic slump in, for example, auto repair services.
But one of the most interesting questions regards the sharing of
roadways between autonomous and driver-controlled vehicles: If there are far
fewer accidents, there will still be accidents, but probably fewer insurers to
cover them. Who is responsible when accidents happen? Who pays? Rather than
owners of autonomous vehicles taking out insurance (and paying premiums), would
it fall on manufacturers to indemnify their products?
One possibility is public/private special compensation funds to
underwrite unintended consequences, such as how AI chooses to mitigate damage
in an unavoidable accident. Owners of older, non-autonomous cars might be
required to financially subsidize the rollout of presumably safer autonomous
vehicles and road systems. Of course, manufacturers’ liability remains a
toss-up in any court of law.
However, Markus reports, the RAND Corporation’s James Anderson and
the Brookings Institution have both cautioned about proactively resolving
liability issues through legislation without longitudinal experience to rely
upon because, as Anderson has said, “we get such legislation wrong a lot.”
Timothy
C. Mack is the managing principal of AAI Foresight.
Image credits: Google, Sam Churchill
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