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Volvo Will Accept Liability For Self-Driving Car Crashes (bbc.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Volvo has announced it will accept "full liability" for accidents when one of its cars is driving autonomously. It joins Mercedes and Google in this claim, hoping to convince regulators that it's worthwhile to allow testing of such vehicles on public roads. Volvo's CTO said, "Everybody is aware of the fact that driverless technology will never be perfect — one day there will be an accident. So the question becomes who is responsible and we think it's unrealistic to put that responsibility on our customers." Of course, this is limited to flaws in the self-driving system. If the driver does something inappropriate, or if another vehicle causes the accident, then they're still liable. It's also questionable how the courts would treat a promise for liability, but presumably this can be cleared up with agreements when customers start actually using the technology.
But it will have to be made to mean something.
I've been saying for quite a while that self-driving cars can't just go into a failure mode which says "OK, meat sock, you do it I'm confused" and expect humans to be able to respond or take liability.
It's completely unrealistic to expect humans to transition from not actively driving to being required to take over in the event of an emergency.
Why would I pay insurance on a self-driving car? That would be idiotic, and basically means everyone else is footing the bill for the adoption of unfinished technology.
If the passengers aren't the source of the risk, they sure as hell shouldn't be the ones pay for the insurance.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Volvo is offering to indemnifying individual owners against flaws in the self-driving system. Of course, you'd have to prove somehow that the self-driving system was responsible, and do it by going up against a massive corporation's legal department.