Will Self-Driving Cars Destroy the Auto Insurance Industry? (siliconvalley.com)

An anonymous reader quotes an article from the Bay Area News Group: Imagine your fully autonomous self-driving car totals a minivan. Who pays for the damages? "There wouldn't be any liability on you, because you're just like a passenger in a taxi," says Santa Clara University law professor Robert Peterson. Instead, the manufacturer of your car or its software would probably be on the hook... Virtually everything around car insurance is expected to change, from who owns the vehicles to who must carry insurance to who -- or what -- is held responsible for causing damage, injuries and death in an accident." Ironically, if you're only driving a semi-autonomous car, "you could end up in court fighting to prove the car did wrong, not you," according to the article. Will human drivers be considered a liability -- by insurers, and even by car owners? The article notes that Google is already testing a car with no user-controlled brake pedal or steering wheel. Of course, one consumer analyst warns the newspaper that "hackers will remain a risk, necessitating insurance coverage for hostile takeover of automated systems..."

Comments

The insurance industry will adapt

[timholman]

"There wouldn't be any liability on you, because you're just like a passenger in a taxi," says Santa Clara University law professor Robert Peterson.

Wow, that's good to know. That means I don't need home insurance either, because I'm not operating the house; I'm just living in it like a resident in a hotel. Clearly the person who built the house will be liable. Oh, wait ....

Could we please put aside these laughable "self-driving cars will be sued out of existence" arguments once and for all? Liability insurance can be purchased to cover situations in which you do not directly control events. For example:

I own a house, and I pay insurance to (among other things) protect myself if I'm sued by people who may injure themselves on my property, even if I'm not at home. My insurance company is perfectly happy to sell me liability insurance, even for property I don't live in.

It will be the same with self-driving cars. If you own one, you'll be able to buy liability insurance for it, just as you would for any other vehicle. The insurance industry will adapt perfectly well.

Re:Stahp

[Bender0x7D1]

From: https://www.google.com/selfdri...

We've self-driven more than 1.5 million miles and are currently out on the streets of Mountain View, CA, Austin, TX, Kirkland, WA and Metro Phoenix, AZ.

It sounds like they have actual cars, driving actual miles, in actual cities. I've also had a coworker who was driving in the Bay Area see one of their cars go by him on the highway - with no one driving.

Now, they might not replace all cars, but even eliminating regular cars in major cities will dramatically change things. Imagine the Bay Area, Los Angeles, Chicago and DC with less than half the cars they have now (due to people sharing, etc.). Suddenly, rush hour isn't a nightmare, and parking spots don't need to sell for $10k/year since it would be cheaper to send your car home instead of parking it - and then it is available for your spouse/child/family member to use, instead of it being parking in a parking ramp downtown. Plus, you could send your car to drive your child to before- and after-school activities instead of doing it yourself.

"Christine, go pick up Carrie from school and drive her to swim practice and then park and wait for her to finish. Then drive her home without stopping at Dairy Queen. (Yes, I named the car Christine.)