What are driverless cars?
Some people call them driverless, some of
them call them autonomous vehicles.
Ultimately, an autonomous vehicle is one that
drives itself without any help from the driver.
The National Highway and Safety Administration
has come up with stages for driverless cars.
In zero, is the driver does everything.
You get to one and two, some functions are
taken over by the vehicle.
Two, is where a lot of vehicles are today.
They may have a program that allows you to
set a speed and the car will go that speed.
When you get to the third stage, there are
more and more things where the car is helping,
like telling you if you're about to hit something,
telling you if you're going out of your lane.
The fourth stage, where we're not there yet,
the car would be totally automatic, no help
from the driver, within certain geographical
areas.
Five, is the ultimate step, and there the
driverless car will go anywhere.
What happens today when there's an automobile
crash between two cars?
The law is pretty easy, it looks at fault.
Sometimes both cars are at fault and in a
lot of states they have what's called comparative fault,
and the jury decides who's the most
at fault and damages are apportioned.
So, if somebody is 90% at fault they pay 90%
of the damages.
The fault damage rules are very generous because
they're based on fault of an individual.
A person not only gets everything that they
lost all their economic losses, their wages,
their medical costs, they also get damages
for something called "pain and suffering."
I would leave out a part of all this if
I didn't get to claims that are brought against
automobile manufacturers.
So there's a certain duty on the part of automobile
manufacturers to protect passengers
in event of a crash.
So if a car is hit from the back at 20 miles
an hour, if a steering wheel doesn't work,
if a brake doesn't work, the people who live
or relatives of those who died, can bring
a claim against the manufacturer.
Well what happens if there are autonomous
vehicles. Will the rules change?
Well, the fault of the driver suddenly becomes
irrelevant, doesn't it?
In a true autonomous vehicle, the person in
the vehicle will have no control over it,
just the way they don't over a- a bus if they're
sitting in it or a train if they're sitting
in it.
So, responsibility then will have to be allocated
some place.
If it's all thrust on the manufacturer, I'm
not sure that's a good idea with our current
damage system.
If your liability is too high, too big, too
hot, it's going to have a negative effect,
slowing down the process of producing these
vehicles, chilling innovation.
Some believe we just
can keep the same old tort rules uh, based
on fault, based on defect, but I believe there's
going to need to be change.
Certainly when you hit the so-called phase
five, when autonomous vehicles occupy the
majority of vehicles on the road.
And, some type of funding needs to be taking
place, and some alteration of the damage rules.
