Who Is Liable When a Self-Driving Car Crashes?

Posted by Unknown on Thursday January 9, 2014 @05:42AM from the werecar-had-too-much-to-drink dept.

innocent_white_lamb writes "Current laws make the driver of a car responsible for any mayhem caused by that vehicle. But what happens when there is no driver? This article argues that the dream of a self-driving car is futile since the law requires that the driver is responsible for the operation of the vehicle. Therefore, even if a car is self-driving, you as the driver must stay alert and pay attention. No texting, no reading, no snoozing. So what's the point of a self-driving car if you can't relax or do something else while 'driving?'"

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Re:Boring Drive by SJHillman · 2014-01-09 06:02 · Score: 5, Informative

Cars should have a failsafe option when faced with a decision in dangerous circumstances. Something like "pull the fuck off the road without hitting shit then ask what to do". Sure, even a failsafe option can't account for everything, but it will probably still do a better job than your average human driver - alert or not.
If we always waited until 100% of the issues are ironed out, then we still wouldn't even be using fire. Personally, once machine drivers are statistically safer than human drivers, I'm all for adopting them as our vehicular overlords.